
Class _J2AiL^ 
Book 



.JkJJf 



THE 






PICTURESQUE AND HISTORICAL 



GUIDE 



TO THE ISLAND OF JERSEY: 



COMPILER FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES, 



BY THE REV. EDWARD DURELL, A;M. 



INTERSPERSED WITH, .LITHOGRAPHIC DRAWINGS 

BY P. J. O.VJiPSa;^'»S.ISI>- : 



JERSEY : 
PUBLISHED BY P. J. OULESS, 8, ROYAL SQUARE. 



1847. 






JERSEY : 
F. AND J. VONBERG, PRINTERS, 
, 41, BATH STREET. 



PREFACE 



The following little Work is in Three Parts, with 
headings to the different Chapters for the facility of 
reference, a plan, which it is hoped will be found 
advantageous. 

The First Part (from Page 1 to 86^, is an abridged 
History of Jersey, compiled from the best historians, 
mixed with original matter, and continued to the pre- 
sent time. The want of a cheap and accessible edition 
of this kind had long been felt as a desideratum. 

The Second Part (from Page 87 to 167), is mostly 
confined to a Description of the Town of St. Helier, 
and its contiguous maritime, and military establish- 
ments. — The author avails himself of this opportunity 
to acknowledge the valuable information he has re- 
ceived from his venerable friend, the learned JVJ. de 
Gerville, the French antiquary of Valognes, on the 
ecclesiastical antiquities of this Island. 

The Third Part (from Page 168 to 254) consists of 
a Tour, in Six Chapters, to visit the most interesting 
localities in Jersey. It is an original selection, rather 
than a compilation from Ouless' Scenic Beauties of 
Jersey, published a few years ago, the Explanations 
and Descriptions of which were written by the author 
of this Work, for which he now solicits the patronage 
of the Public. 



PREFACE. 



A certain part of the materials had never appeared 
before; the rest is a compilation, which, though it has 
been selected from the best authorities, can have no 
claims to originality. This always happens, when the 
novelty of the subject has already been long exhausted, 
by its previous appearance in numerous publications. 
It is therefore only by something new in the style, or 
by some particular arrangement of the matter, that an 
old subject can be placed in a more striking point of 
view, and have the merit of being made more interest- 
ing to the Reader. 

After this candid acknowledgment, it would be 
superfluous to crowd the following pages with mar- 
ginal references to the numerous authorities, which it 
lias been advisable to consult in the course of pre- 
paring this Publication. 

The strictest impartiality has been observed, 
throughout, so as to speak of men and things, as if 
every prejudice had been removed by the distance of 
some centuries from the actors in those busy scenes ; 
but at the same time to shrink from no statements! 
which can be established by facts, and to profess no 
opinions either inconsistent with the purest loyalty to 
our Sovereign, or at variance with the warmest attach- 
ment of Jerseymen to their native island, or to the 
well-being and the permanency of its local interests. 
St. Heller's, Jersey, 
June J 8, 1847. 



INTRODUCTION 



Situation of the Channel Islands, and of Jersey in particular. 
— Its proximity to the coast of France. — Its conformation 
and general appearance. — The fertility of its soil, audits 
abundant supply of fresh zvater. 

In a deep bay on the coast of Normandy, which takes 
its name from the far-famed monastic and chivalrous 
Abbey of Mount St. Michael, at an easy distance from 
the continent, lies a group of small but fertile Islands, 
which now form the only feeble, but interesting rem- 
nant of the ancient Duchy of Normandy, but which ia 
now better known by the general name of the Channel 
Islands. These consist of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, 
and Sark, with some smaller ones of little importance. 
Of all these, Jersey is the largest, the most populous, 
and the nearest to the coast of France, it has also the 
most considerable proportion of fruitful and cultivated 
land. These islands are further highly favoured in 
point of situation and latitude, lying open on one side 
to the British Channel, and in one of the mildest por- 

A 



II INTRODUCTION. 

tions of the temperate zone. St. Michael's Bay forms 
an extensive curve, which recedes to a considerable 
distance into the French coast, and sweeps on from 
Cap La Hague in Normandy, to Cape Frehelle in 
Britany. The whole of that long range of coast is 
commanded in time of war by the naval forces of 
Great Britain, which are stationed at those islands. 

Jersey lies the most southerly of this group, and as 
this little work is particularly intended to assist stran- 
gers in their excursions there, it will be unnecessary 
to say any thing further about its sister islands. We 
may therefore begin by observing, that Jersey is 
situated in 49 degrees of North latitude, and 2 degrees, 
22 minutes, West longitude of London. Geographically 
speaking, it cannot be denied that it forms a very 
approximate appendage of the French continent, the 
nearest points of which, are not at the distance of more 
than five or six leagues. These are the small fishing 
towns of Carteret and Portbail, from the latter of 
which the Jersey markets receive a plentiful supply of 
provisions. The sea in the intermediate channel is 
shallow, and as there is a tradition that Jersey, at 
some distant period, was, by some violent commotion 
or other, separated from the continent, if such an event 
did ever happen, it was probably at that place. It is 
at the eastern end of Jersey, where the sea leaves dry 
at low water a ridge of low rocks, of sand banks and of 
shingle, about three miles in length, which is well 



INTRODUCTION. Ill 

known by the local name of the " Bank du Violet," 
near the extremity of which, and on a higher rock, 
Seymour's Tower was built about sixty years ago. It 
was from that point that it was found, on actual 
soundings not many years back, that the water in the 
middle of that channel, is not more than 40 feet at 
low water, and about 80 feet at full tide. How frail 
then, yet how extraordinary a barrier is this, which 
has kept two nations distinct from each other in their 
manners, their laws, and their religion for almost a 
thousand years ! 

The other French ports in the neighbourhood of 
Jersey, are Granville, at the distance of 10 leagues, and 
those of St. Malo and Cherbourg, at the distance of 
about 12 leagues each ; the latter of which has of late 
years become a formidable naval establishment, which 
in case of any future war with France, would require 
to be watched by Great Britain with particular vigilance. 

In reckoning the distances to the nearest British 
possessions, they are as follows : — 

To Guernsey, about seven leagues. 

To Alderney, about ten leagues. 

To Weymouth, about twenty-five leagues. 

To the Isle of Wight, about thirty leagues ; and 

To Southampton, about forty leagues. 

The form of the Island is that of an irregular 
parallogram, running from South-east to North-west. 
Its greatest length is about twelve miles, and the 
average breadth may be estimated at full five miles, 



3Y INTRODUCTION. 

but in no part does it exceed seven miles. It has been 
ascertained by a recent survey, that its surface contains 
from 39,000 to 40,000 acres. From this total must of 
course be deducted some tracts of sandy downs and 
rocky coasts, with a few other waste lands only adapted 
to the growth of wood or furze. 

The appearance of Jersey is that of an inclined plane 
towards the South. The same conformation is also 
observable with some exceptions of high and rugged 
tracts of coast on its western and eastern boundaries. 
Part of the eastern coast, commencing at Mount 
Orgueil, and the whole of the northern shore as far as 
l'Etac, in St. Ouen's parish, form, with but few 
interruptions, a range of cliffs rising abruptly from the 
sea to the height of from 200 to 300 feet. This natural 
defence renders the island in those places nearly 
inaccessible. The internal rocks are in general mere 
naked ridges, forming here and there promontories 
projecting into the sea, a circumstance which adds to 
the rapidity of the tides and currents, and varies their 
courses. In several places the rocks are loosely blended 
with other stony substances, or are in a state of great 
disintegration. Hence the violence of the tides has 
formed some deep inlets, and scooped out several 
caverns, where occasionally, in such confined situations, 
the water rises to the perpendicular height of 40 or 50 
feet, whence the spray is dashed about in every possible 
direction. It is at a narrow interval from these rugged 



INTRODUCTION. V 

cliffs that the land begins to decline towards the 
southern coast, which in several places is nearly on a 
level with the sea. The slip of table land, which runs 
parallel between the northern and southern coasts, and 
from which the waters flow towards either, is on an 
average not above a mile wide. In this respect, Jersey 
displays a striking contrast with Guernsey, the southern 
boundary of which shoots up into high rocks from the 
water, and declines towards the north. It is principally 
owing to this difference of position, that there is such a 
marked variety in the nature of the soil, and in the 
temperature of the atmosphere in the two islands, which 
considering the small distance between them, would 
otherwise be inexplicable. 

In general the strata of the rocks run from North 
to South, thus following the form of the island ; but 
those layers are usually more inclined than the de- 
clination of the surface. No part of the island rises 
to an elevation of more than from two to three hun- 
dred feet, the highest localities of which are tracts of 
table land, gradually sloping towards the sea, par- 
ticularly on the southern coast. Those elevated parts 
are at small distances from each other, and intersected 
by deep, and in general by narrow vales, which run 
from North to South. The sides of those vales are 
bounded by steep and sometimes even craggy decli- 
vities; but more frequently they are planted with 
timber, or thickly set with furze and brushwood. 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

Those slopes are generally too steep to be cultivated 
to advantage, and are therefore left in their unpro- 
ductive state. At the highest elevation of those slopes 
begins the table land, to which they seem to serve as 
embankments to prevent it from falling into those 
vales. Under this point of view, the country presents 
as it were an appearance of hills, which had been 
truncated and compressed, to form the irregular sur- 
face of that table land. These numerous vales have 
copious rivulets of water, which run through them, 
when they again receive the accession of an infinite 
number of tributary streams, which flow into them 
from a thousand springs. On which account there is 
not perhaps any spot in the world which is more 
bountifully supplied with fresh water. The compara- 
tively long course of those rivulets is particularly 
advantageous to so small an island, as it enables it to 
have a greater number of water-mills, than it would have 
been possible to erect under different circumstances. 

A thousand springs gush from th' adjacent hiils, 

And pour their waters thro' embow'ring groves, 
And grass}- meads, in fertilising rills ; 

"While as the eye along the landscape roves, 
With rapid glance, a living picture moves. 

Of happiness in each secluded vale, 
Where dwells a num'rous race, where labour proves, 

That frugal food and pleasure shall not fail, 
While health is in the clime, and coolness in the gale. 

Notes on Falle's History, p. 373, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Origin of the name of Jersey. — Its occupation by the Celts 
and the Druids. — The conquest and government of the 
Romans. — Its ancient connection icith France. — Co7iversion 
of the hiliabitants. — Canonisation of Saints. — The Is- 
landers become a distinct people. — Invasions of the Nor- 
mans, and their ravages on the coasts of France. 

A short sketch of the historical recollections of the 
Island of Jersey may not be unacceptable, the more so 
as they become dim and uncertain, in proportion as 
they recede into the darkness of distant ages. 

The name of Jersey itself is involved in obscurity. 
The most common opinion is, that it is of a Roman 
origin, and that its present Latin name of Ceesarea, is 
merely derived from the adjective of Caesar, which has 
since been corrupted into Jersey. The subjection of 
Gaul to the Romans lasted for four centuries and-a- 
half ; and it is probable that during that long period, 
some of the Cgesars might have been attracted to this 
favoured spot ; but it is very unlikely that a place then 
of so little importance, should have been visited by 
Julius Ceesar, who was the first Roman emperor, and 



2 HISTORICAL SKETCH OP JERSEY. 

the conqueror of Gaul, to whom the building of Mount 
Orgueil Castle is commonly attributed. Indeed, tradi- 
tion seems to have been fond to assign exclusively to 
Julius, whatever had been done by any other of the 
Caesars. The name of Ceesarea is however very 
ancient, from its being mentioned as an island of the 
British Ocean, in the Itinerary of the Emperor Anto- 
ninus Pius, who reigned 150 years after Christ. It> 
results from this that Jersey was already an island, 
and that if it had ever been severed from the continent, 
it must have been at a period of very remote antiquity. 
It is however certain, from the remains of Roman en- 
trenchments, from the occasional finding of medals, 
and from the vicinity of the island to the Roman 
colony at Coutances, that it had been occupied by that 
people ; but in the absence of positive proofs, con- 
jecture and probability may be allowed, however im- 
perfectly, to supply their place. We, therefore, assume 
that the rule of that people continued, till they were 
themselves expelled from Gaul by the invasion of the 
northern barbarians. 

As to the period which preceded the Roman con- 
quest, little can be said about the state of the island. 
Like the rest of the neighbouring countries it had been 
under the influence of the superstition of the Diuids 
from the various cromlehs or religious memorials of 
those enthusiasts, which have been discovered here. 
It was during their ascendancy, that the Castle of 
Mount Orgueil was first erected ; for the present build- 
ings seem to be Norman. A post so impregnable then, 
was not likely to have been neglected. The druidical 
worship, however, continued long after the establish- 
ment of the Romans, nor did it disappear from the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. d 

land till the propagation of Christianity, had prospered 
on the ruins of those odious rites. It is therefore 
for those different reasons, I am inclined to believe, 
that the name of Jersey is not of a Roman, but of a 
Celtic origin ; and that it is derived from " Caer," a 
rock, and " ey," an island, from which a Roman would 
naturally write Csesarea, though it would correspond 
better with the rocky cliffs, which line so large a part 
of its coasts. 

It may be further mentioned in this place, that some 
of the earlier writers sometimes refer to Jersey under 
the name of Augia, as if it had already been so known 
under the dominion of the Celts, and before the coming 
of the Romans. Whether they were correct in using 
that name, it is now impossible to ascertain, and indeed 
it would be superfluous to inquire. 

The first period of the history of this island is that 
which existed under the administration of the Druids 
and the Celts, which ended in the conquest of Gaul 
by Julius Ceesar, a little before the Christian era. The 
particulars of those times are so much involved in fables, 
that they may be continually disputed, or what is 
still more discouraging, that although some of the facts 
may be true, they are totally void of interest to the 
general reader. 

The government of the Romans lasted till the 
subversion of their empire in Gaul. During those four 
centuries, Gaul became comparatively civilized. Ro- 
man colonies were founded and flourished, while the 
old superstitions of the country gradually disappeared 
with the propagation of Christianity. This, however, 
was the general effect of Roman administration at large, 
but it is impossible to say how far those multiplied 



4 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

benefits extended to all the remoter provinces, or to the 
island of Jersey, which was then poor, unimportant, 
and with a scanty population. It has indeed preserved 
no vestige of the residence of the Romans, except some 
mouldering encampments, and a few solitary medals 
of some of the emperors, which have occasionally been 
found. Even tradition is silent, whether the com- 
manding fortress of Gorey, or Mount Orgueil, was 
ever a Roman station. 

After those conquerors had been expelled from our 
shores, the Francs, a nation of barbarians, who had 
issued from the wilds of Germany became in their turn 
the conquerors of our soil, and founded an empire, 
which has since been known as the French monarchy. 
That warlike nation breaking out of their native re- 
cesses, spread themselves like an inundation far and 
wide. Under the two first dynasties of the kings of 
France, their empire gradually increased, till it com- 
prised all the countries, which are included between 
the Danube and the ocean. That immense tract was 
divided into eastern and western France, part of the 
latter of which constituted the country of Neustria, 
whose lower province, at a subsequent period, was 
ceded to the Normans, and assumed their name. The 
ancient Neustria was a maritime province, of which 
the Channel Islands had been considered as parcels, 
and consequently during those ages, they were integral 
dependencies of the great kingdom of France. The 
duchy of Normandy, which succeeded, was also a 
maritime tract, but much smaller than the ancient 
Neustria. 

The period of that ancient French sovereignty ex- 
tends over a duration of almost five hundred years, or 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

from the foundation of that kingdom about the year 
420 to the cession of the province of Neustria to the 
Normans in 912. The transactions of those times are 
meagre and scanty, or refer to men and actions, which 
have long ceased to be interesting, and whose effects 
have no influence on the present state of society. 
Those events were the wars, and the degeneracy of 
the first dynasty of the French sovereigns, the invasion 
of the Saracens, the wars and the establishments of 
Charlemagne, and the subsequent declension, and 
final ruin of his family. These were indeed great his- 
torical events, but their consequences have passed 
away, till they have become in the present state of 
society to be no more, than the shadows of an empty 
dream. Moreover, every history of this kind belonging 
to the general efforts of a great country, cannot with 
propriety be referred to, as being the local history of 
any particular district. Therefore, the annals of the 
Channel Islands, and of the neighbouring parts of the 
continent, may be dispatched in a few words. In the 
first place, the various elements of the population, 
whether Celtic, Roman, or French, were melted into 
one general mass, from which arose a new language 
and a new nation, which now constitutes the modern 
French. The amalgamation of the usages of the 
ancient natives, of different countries with the Romans, 
who conquered them, have in like manner occasioned 
the origin of the several nations of modern Europe, 
till every section of its large families, have become 
proud of their nationality, and by means of progressive 
improvements and variations, have still further widened 
the lines of separation. This is more particularly 
striking in the case of the Frenchman, the Spaniard? 



b HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and the Italian, who though originally sprung from 
the same stock, have since spread themselves out into 
distinct nations. Hence, under this point of view the 
Channel Islands were strictly French, and constituted 
a small part of that monarchy during the first five 
hundred years of its existence, a long period indeed in 
the course of human generations, and' more than 
sufficient to impress the indelible traces of a national 
character. This will account for many of the laws, 
and other local peculiarities of the inhabitants of those 
islands, and why French has been retained, notwith- 
standing their change of religion and of political 
circumstances, as their vernacular language. 

It is to this period of French connection, that we 
must refer the complete conversion of the natives to 
the Christian faith. It is well known that the Roman 
Empire was Christian at the time of its destruction, 
unless it might have been in some of its remote and 
yet half civilized provinces. When, therefore, one 
reads of the successful labours of the missionaries, who 
came from Wales into Armorica, since Britany, and 
into the neighbouring districts, it must be generally 
understood that, their exertions were directed to 
eradicate the remnants of the druidical, and of other 
pagan superstitions from the country, and to convert 
that part of the population, which consisted of the 
hordes of northern barbarians, who had settled in 
their conquests. Be that however as it may, it is 
evident that the general propagation of Christianity, 
the formation of dioceses, the building of churches, 
and the establishment of a regular priesthood are 
referable to this period. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. / 

Most of the churches in the Channel Islands have 
retained the names of their patron saints, whose career 
was either very obscure, or at most but locally known. 
Many of them had been the founders of their own 
churches, who after having spent holy and usefullives 
in the service of their respective congregations, were 
considered by them as beings of a superior order, to 
whose tutelary guidance they might commit their 
worldly and spiritual concerns. It would seem as if 
every church then enjoyed the right of canonisation, 
and that it is to circumstance that we must attribute 
the great number of saints, whose origin is unknown, 
and whose names have never been canonised. It is 
not commonly known that the canonisation of saints 
is not to be found in the early ages of the church, and 
that the first instance of it in the Romish Church, 
happened in the year 923, in the case of St. Uldric. 
At present that church does not canonise any one till 
a hundred years after the death. 

Another effect of that early connection with France, 
is that it has left some indelible marks on the national 
character of the inhabitants, such as on their laws, 
their language, and their habits, which sufficiently 
prove that they are not of a British origin, but that they 
have been so much modified through a long series of 
changes and variations, that their protracted connection 
with the Normans, and subsequently with the English, 
has rendered them a distinct people, in every respect 
essentially different from the two powerful neighbours, 
who almost enclose their narrow limits on every side. 

The latter part of this period was productive of the 
most extraordinary events. The Normans, a northern 
nation as their name imports, and who seem to have 
been the same people as the Danes, who so long 



8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

ravaged England, extended their piracies to the coasts 
of France, and rendered them the scenes of their havoc 
and desolation. Their incursions began under Louis I., 
the son of Charlemagne, and lasted about eighty- 
years, or to 912. The success of those invaders had 
the effect of increasing their numbers, and rendering 
their incursions more frequent, and more formidable. 
Their track was marked with the most frightful horrors, 
and with scenes of the bitterest distress. It belongs, 
however, to the history of France to expatiate upon 
those calamities, which are but incidentally mentioned 
in this place, so far as they affected the Channel Islands, 
and the adjoining continental province of Neustria. 
The weak successors of Charlemagne, were unable to 
resist effectually the violence of those invaders ; but 
it was in the reign of his grandson, Charles the Bald, 
that matters grew infinitely worse, the whole of which 
was spent in endeavouring to oppose a barrier to their 
ravages. By means of their light vessels they ascended 
the rivers, and penetrated into the heart of the country, 
where they plundered, and burned the towns, and shed 
such torrents of human blood, that the ruin and 
devastation, which followed in their course, could 
hardly find a parallel in history. Those pagans were 
gross and brutal idolaters, and strongly addicted to 
all the superstitions of their god Odin. It was this 
which made them wreak their rage, particularly upon 
churches, monasteries, and religious persons; and 
indeed everything that was Christian, was exposed to 
their wanton and unmitigated barbarity. There were 
no places in the neighbourhood more exposed to the 
predatory incursions of those barbarians than the Chan- 
nel Islands, near which they necessarily had to pass, 
as they ranged along the coasts of the Continent. 



CHAPTER II. 

Martyrdom of St. Helier. — The cession of Neustria, the es-* 
tablishment and conversion of the Normans. — The Govern- 
ment and character of Rotto. — The Norma?is become a 
separate nation. — The Clamour or Invocation of the name 
of Haro. — Small political value of the Channel Islands 
then. — The descendants of Rollo still on the throne of 
England. 

As Jersey had long before been converted to Chris- 
tianity, it was there that the Pagan Normans left a 
signal instance of their ferocity. There lived then 
here a holy man, who had long been distinguished for 
the piety, and the austerity of his life. The name of 
that meek recluse was Helier, whose little solitary 
cell, which he had chosen for his retreat from the 
world, is still to be seen on a rock near Elizabeth Cas- 
tle, and still retains, after so many ages, its primitive 
name of the Hermitage. 

They put this holy man to death under those aggra- 
vated circumstances of cruelty, which gained him the 
reputation of a martyr and a saint. The anniversary 
of his martyrdom, according to the ecclesiastical calen- 
dar of the Cathedral of Coutances, happens on the 17th 
of July. The island itself became famous in after 
times, on account of this undaunted, and devoted 
man ; and still more so, when after a long interval, a 
Norman nobleman, of the posterity of those who had 
murdered him there, founded an abbey on the spot, 



10 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

which had been hallowed by his martyrdom, and 
dedicated it to his memory, by calling it the Abbev of 
St. Helier. It was then, also, that on the neighbour- 
ing shore, and in the sight of the Hermitage, was laid 
the first foundation of the town of St. Helier, which 
has in the present age become a large, commercial, 
and important sea-port. 

After the Normans, as above stated, had continued 
a predatory kind of warfare for about eighty years, the 
king of France, Charles the Simple, finding that all his 
efforts to repel those merciless invaders, were unavail- 
ing, sought to make a compromise with them, and by 
making a cession of some part of the kingdom, to save 
the rest. Rollo, who was afterwards so celebrated, 
was then the leader of the Normans. The Archbishop 
of Rouen was sent to him with the overtures of a 
treaty. The emphatical words of the prelate on that 
occasion, have been preserved by the contemporary 
historians. " Will you, mighty Chieftain," said he, 
" be at war with the French, as long as you live ?" 
" What will become of you, should death surprise 
you ?" " Do you think that you are a God ?" " Are 
you not a mortal man ?" " Remember what you are, 
and will be, and by whom you must one day be 
judged." After this solemn exordium, he proposed 
the terms of an accommodation, by which part of 
Neustria, containing all the fine tract of country, which 
extends 200 miles in length along the British sea, 
with a corresponding breadth, should be ceded to 
Rollo, and his successors for ever, to hold by fealty 
and homage to the crown of France, under the title 
and dignity of Dukes. It was further proposed to 
Rollo, that if he would embrace Christianity, the King 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 11 

of France would bestow his daughter Gilla upon him 
in marriage, as a pledge of sincere amity, and of per- 
petual peace between the two nations. The proposals 
were accepted, and the treaty was ratified by an inter- 
view between the two princes. Rollo was baptized, 
and his authority and influence, induced his followers 
to follow his example. 

Those events happened in 912, when the Channel 
Islands were thus irrevocably severed from the French 
monarchy. Many vestiges of that ancient connection 
have remained, and though they may have been weak- 
ened or diminished during a long succession of ages, 
enough has however continued to establish a distant 
approximation to French habits. The Normans soon 
coalesced with the general mass of natives into a 
powerful and independent nation, the rival of France, 
and the principalcheck to all its schemes of aggrandise- 
ment. It is therefore at that period, that the Channel 
Islands may be said to have begun their new and 
permanent era, which may be still divided into two 
periods, the former of which continued as long as 
continental Normandy existed, as a great and powerful 
state, till through the incapacity and misrule of King 
John, it was subjugated by France. It had been 
separated from it for about 300 years, half of which 
had elapsed since William had by conquest ascended 
the English throne. The latter period of the Normans 
is from 1204 to the present day, when the great mass 
of their duchy has been merged again in the French 
monarchy, and with their national independence, they 
have also lost their national character. Hence, it may 
be said, and that too with the proud conviction of truth, 
that the only remnant of that enterprising people 



12 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

cannot now be discovered anywhere, except in the 
Channel Islands. This short account of the early 
history of those noted Islands may not be unacceptable 
to the general reader of this little work, and it may 
also correct the notions of a few individuals, who 
might perhaps pretend, that the present brave and loyal 
inhabitants, are but a race of half foreigners, and little 
more than the population of some conquered territory, 
recently incorporated into the empire. It is a striking 
feature in the history of the Normans, that as soon as 
they had obtained a territorial settlement, the greater 
part of them immediately embraced Christianity, and 
in time became the most zealous supporters of that be- 
neficent religion, by their munificence in the erection 
of churches, and by the large endowments, which 
they bestowed on religious houses. 

The Normans became a quiet and orderly people, 
governed by good laws, many of which are still in 
force. Though some of them might not be calculated 
for our times, yet, as a whole, they were quite sufficient 
for the exigences of the people, for whom they had 
been designed. The feudal system which the Normans 
established, and which extended in all its ramifications 
from the Duke to the lowest vassal, was the best which 
could have been introduced under actual circumstances. 
Among a people, where the sovereign had not the 
means of keeping up a regular army, he was thus 
enabled to provide himself with a military force by the 
divisions, and sub-divisions, of his territorial resources 
among his retainers, who in their turn were bound by 
their tenures, to assist him in repelling any hostile 
aggression. Such armies indeed had but little dis- 
cipline, and were but indifferently qualified for distant 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 13 

expeditions, or for protracted campaigns ; but they 
were the only ones which could be raised by sovereigns 
without revenues, whose nobility contributed in war 
nothing beyond their personal service, and when the 
commonalty was yet too poor, and too unimportant, 
to increase the strength of the state, and render it in- 
dependent of the nobles by their productive industry, 
and their consequent ability to bear the heavy load of 
accumulated taxes. 

When Rollo was baptised he had assumed the name 
of Robert, in honour of his sponsor Robert, Count of 
Paris, and one of the principal lords of Charles the 
Simple. He is, however, generally known under that 
of Rollo, an appellation under which he had acquired 
his former celebrity, and which could not be changed 
or eclipsed, by the assumption of any Christian name. 

Rollo was, indeed, the commander of the largest of 
the Norman invasions, the result of which was the 
cession of Neustria in 942. The beneficial conse- 
quences of it, however, were not immediate in the 
diocese of Coutances, in which our island was then 
situated ; for some of the Norman chiefs, who had 
settled in these parts, had continued to be pagans, and 
it was even many years after, that the country had still 
much to suffer from an incursion of Haigrol, one of 
the Kings of Denmark. The reader may not be sorry 
to have the following quotation from the pen of the 
learned M. le Canu, in his history of the Bishops of 
Coutances : — 

" The country might have expected better days after 
the conversion of Rollo. His example could not fail to 
have been highly influential, and in fact it had been so ; 
but that was but slowly produced in our diocese of Cou- 



14 HISTORICAL SKETCH 0E JERSEY. 

tances ; for it appears from the registers of the Cathedral, 
that for more than a hundred years afterwards, the bishops 
could not come there but clandestinely to discharge their 
functions. It is not improbable that it was in consequence 
of that hatred to Christianity, that Count Riout armed the 
inhabitants of the neighbouring districts of CoteDtin, and 
marched them to Rouen in 931 to attack the Duke of 
Normandy. The Normans of the Cotentin, though of the 
same nation as Rollo, reluctantly received him for their 
lord, as they had been settled in the country before him, 
and were independent of him. He therefore either dared 
not, or was unable to compel them to become Christians 
at the same time as his other subjects. He was in conse- 
quence obliged, to prevent the extinction of the Church of 
Coutances, to call its bishop near his person, and to grant 
him a place of worship in which he might on ciate. 
During the seven days that the prince kept the white gar- 
ment after baptism he made splendid giants to several par- 
ticular churches ; his largesses extended even to the Con- 
vent of Mount St. Michael ; but Coutances had nothing, 
because that church was not then in a situation to receive 
any of those munificent grants. 

" Those proud infidel?, however, bowed their necks in 
the end under the yoke of faith. It was truly wonderful 
how those men were converted with all the sincerity of 
their hearts. Soon were they seen to lend a helping hand 
to repair the misfortunes, which had either been caused by 
themselves, or by their ancestors. They rebuilt the 
churches, raised the monasteries from their ruins, recalled 
the monks and the priests, and enriched the churches 
and convents. Thus in less than a century every thing 
was not only restored to its former state, but was even 
improved. 

" The country had indeed changed its masters ; but it 
had not changed its usages, and the Norman lords who 
had replaced the French lords, followed exactly the same 
course. In their civil institutions, they strictly adhered to 
the laws of the feudal system ; and with respect to religion, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 15 

they built churches near their castles, or else they erected 
chapels in their very castles, where the priests whom they 
appointed there, were provided for at their own expence. 
It was there that every thing in Normandy was moulded 
after the example of France. 

" The etymology of the names of most of our country 
parishes, is referable to the tenth and eleventh centuries. 
Neither before that period is it possible to trace out any 
property belonging to any particular church, such as 
tythes, or any revenues appropriated to the repairs of the 
sacred buildings. 

" Every one of those lords annexed a provision to the 
church which he had built either for himself, or for his 
vassals. When they granted lands in fee, they retained 
the quit-rents for themselves, and the tythes for their 
chapels. The parochial priest or the chaplain, had to ap- 
portion that endowment into three parts ; the first for the 
fabric of his church, or for its repairs and maintenance, 
the second for the relief of the poor, and the third for the 
supply of his own personal wants. 

" We have said perhaps too little about ecclesiastical 
discipline. One example will suffice . Till the twelfth cen- 
tury, baptism, except in cases of necessity, was not ad- 
ministered except on Easter Eve and at Whitsuntide. The 
neophytes, or the newly baptised wore during eight days 
a white garment, and a veil on their heads, which was 
called the chrismal. This became afterwards the per- 
quisite of the church, and was used by the clerks for pio- 
viding themselves with surplices:" 

(EVEQUES DE CoUTANCES, p. 96.) 

It is from that period of independence and prosperity 
that the Normans are to be considered as a distinct 
nation, and the rival of France, till subsequently by 
their great victory at Hastings, they laid the foundation 
of a mighty empire, which has continued to aggrandise 
itself even after their political existence on the con- 
tinent bad been extinguished, and all the recollections 



16 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

of their departed greatness were only to be traced in 
the page of history. The Channel Islands have alone 
remained as a broken, but interesting wreck of that 
warlike people, and have continued through the viscis- 
situdes of so many ages, to be faithful to their sove- 
reigns, and unconquered ; a possession long anterior to 
the conquest of Britain, and the most ancient of all the 
jewels which now adorn its crown. 

The name of Rollo has descended to posterity, not 
only as that of a great warrior, but as that of a quiet 
and benevolent prince, at once the conqueror, and 
benefactor of his new country. Some of his institutions 
have survived, and are still nourishing after the lapse 
of a thousand years. One of them, the Clamour of 
Haro, has in some measure been invested with an air 
of romance, as if a charm had attached to the sacred 
name, and as if protection could issue from the ashes 
of that virtuous prince, to preserve the weak from 
injustice, and to avenge the wrongs of the oppressed. 
It was a kind of solemn protest from any one who 
thought himself aggrieved, which was made in this 
form of words "Haro ! O my prince, aid me, for 
I am wronged." It had the immediate effect of 
stopping all proceedings, till the matter could be ac- 
curately examined by a judicial investigation. A 
remarkable instance of this happened about 1/0 years 
after, at the funeral of his descendant, William the 
Conqueror. That clamour is still the common mode 
of proceeding in Jersey, when either of the parties 
imagines that the other is encroaching on, or dete- 
riorating his real property. The matter is afterwards 
argued before the Royal Court of the island, and if 
the appellant cannot substantiate the aggression, of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 17 

which he had complained, he is fined, as a punish- 
ment for having causelessly invoked, and profaned the 
sacred name of Haro ! 

It is not to be imagined, that at this early period of 
Norman prosperity, these islands were of the value 
and importance, which they have since acquired. 
They had no trade or resources, and their population 
was yet scanty and dispersed. They had, however, 
the invaluable advantage of being incorporated with 
those Normans, an heroical people, with whose national 
character they were identified, and in all whose 
triumphs, they had had their adequate share. In the 
absence of more positive evidence, it is a strong pre- 
sumption of their weakness and poverty, that when 
the adjoining continent was daily being covered with 
the most magnificent, and the most expensive ecclesi- 
astical foundations, the islands remained in their former 
insignificance, and had no other places of worship than 
small and rude chapels, which had been built in 
different parts of the country. The division by parishes 
did not yet exist ; and St. Brelade, the oldest parish 
church in Jersey, is not of a higher date than of the 
beginning of the twelfth century. Previous to this, 
the public worship was celebrated in a great number 
of small chapels spread over the surface of the island. 
All these have gradually disappeared, some of them 
not yet many years ago, so that the only one which 
yet accidentally remains in rather a perfect state, is 
that in St. Brelade' s church-yard. 

Another fact not often attended to, is that the 
dynasty of Rollo still exists, and that his lineal heirs 
are still on the English throne. Many royal houses 
have indeed reigned in England ; but they have all 



18 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

derived their right through, females, who represented 
in direct descent the Norman blood of their illustrious 
progenitors. The salic law is a mere accidental mode 
of conveying inheritance, and where that law has not 
been adopted, the female who inherits, continues the 
Royal race ; for it would be ridiculous to pretend that 
such an interruption in the male line, did constitute a 
change of dynasty. Under that point of view, the 
family on the throne of England, is the first Royal 
House in Europe, and even more ancient than that of 
France, as on a reference to dates, it is evident that 
Rollo had already been acknowledged for a sovereign 
prince before Hugh Capet had become, by election, or 
rather by usurpation, the first king of the third race of 
the sovereigns of that country. 



CHAPTEE III. 

Period of Norman Independence. — Consequences of the Battle 
of Hastings. — Dissensions in the family of William the 
Conqueror. — Deviations in the succession to the Crown. — 
Hemy I., and his soil, Prince William. Regnault De 
Carteret. — Tancrede de Hauteville. — Abbey of St. Helier. 
— Matilda and the Abbey of the Vow. — Henry II., and his 
line of French Coast. — Continental Normandy reconquered 
by France. — National character of the present Channel 
Islanders. 

It is not perhaps generally observed, that the period 
of Norman independence can be divided into two 
portions of almost equal duration. The former of these 
begins with the dismemberment of Neustria from the 
crown of Prance in 912, and comes down to the battle 
of Hastings. It forms the first and most important 
epoch in the history of independent Normandy. It 
was then that the national character was fully deve- 
loped ; and that what they wanted in numbers and 
in resources, they compensated in energy and 
perseverance. 

The latter is that from the battle of Hastings to the 
conquest of Normandy by the King of France, and its 
final incorporation with that monarchy. The connection 
with England made that latter country the principal 
seat of power, and it had evidently a tendency to impair 
the nationality of the Normans, and to prepare them 



20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

by degrees to acquiesce with less' reluctance to submit 
to sink again into a French Province. 

A period of 154 years elapsed from the establishment 
of Rollo to that of the battle of Hastings, which placed 
William on the throne of England. That battle was 
indeed one of the most important that ever happened 
in the history of mankind, and whose consequences 
have been, and are still felt, after almost 800 years, not 
only in the frequent struggles between Great Britain 
and France, but in the system of European politics in 
general. 

During that period seven dukes reigned in Normandy, 
who were all distinguished princes, who successfully 
maintained their independence and aggrandised their 
dominions. 

A new era began for the Normans, and for the 
islands in particular, who thus became firmly united to 
England, from which they have never since been 
separated. Nothing has been recorded of these 
islands during the reign of the Conqueror, in which 
they were exclusively concerned. But though all 
memorials of the fact are lost, it is but a fair presump- 
tion to suppose, that many of the vassals from the 
islands followed their sovereign in his expedition 
against the Anglo-Saxons, and shared with him, 
more or less, in all the dangers and advantages of the 
conquest. 

William, as it is well known, was particularly unfor- 
tunate in his family, and perhaps there is no example 
in the whole range of history, of brothers more 
ambitious, more unprincipled, or more unnatural, than 
the sons of William. The most valuable part of the 
patrimony of Robert, the eldest son, was usurped by 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 21 

his brother, William Rufus. Robert, a brave and 
warlike prince, entered largely into all the visionary- 
schemes of the crusades. He repaired to the Holy 
Land, where after performing- prodigies of valour, and 
materially contributing with his Normans to the success 
of the first Crusade, he might have been elected King 
of Jerusalem, had he not been particularly desirous of 
returning to his own country. But misfortunes fol- 
lowed him on his return, and he was a second time 
prevented from succeeding to the English throne. 
His brother Henry had taken advantage of his absence, 
and had usurped his crown. It was in vain that Robert 
endeavoured to recover his birthright; for having 
been disappointed, his brother Henry stripped him of 
his remaining duchy of Normandy, made himself 
master of his person, and doomed him to a perpetual 
imprisonment in an obscure castle in Wales, where he 
lingered till his death for twenty eight years. It is 
said, that to disable him from ever appearing again in 
the world, he had caused him to be deprived of sight. 
Such aggravated instances of the misfortunes of the 
great, are seldom to be found, even in the annals of the 
blackest times, and cannot be read without the mingled 
feelings of horror and of sympathy. 

A question would here arise, whether the reduction 
of Normandy, and the captivity of Robert by Henry I. 
could be considered as a conquest of the latter province 
by England; and that in consequence the Channel 
Islands, with the rest of the duchy, became a conquered 
dominion annexed to that kingdom. But the idea of 
conquest implies an aggrandisement made at the 
expense of an independent state. But this could not 
be considered to be the case in the dissensions of the 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

sons of William the Conqueror, which was a civil war, 
or rather a rebellion against the lawful heir; for such 
undoubtedly it would have been esteemed, had he 
prevailed. It could not also have been a conquest, as 
Henry I. only brought over to him, either by force or 
by intrigue, all the dominions which had been held by 
his father. It is indeed impossible at this distance of 
time, to examine with accuracy the reasons which had 
led to those unnatural dissensions ; but it is evident 
that according to the strict and unvarying rules of 
right, Henry I. was an usurper of his brother's domi- 
nions, and that to palliate his wrongs his flatterers might 
have subsequently set up a claim for him, which rested 
on conquest. But no ingenuity or adulation can ever 
hallow crime, or throw a veil over the imprescriptible 
rights of justice. 

It is a peculiar feature in the history of England, 
that although its sovereigns since the conquest have all 
descended from the same dynasty, there have been 
frequent deviations from the regular line of succession, 
when princes of the royal blood, have stepped into the 
enjoyment of the rights of some elder branch. This 
happened in the case of Henry 1., who usurped the 
right of his elder brother ; and a modification of the 
same principle occurs in the Act of Settlement, which 
set aside the claims of the House of Stuart to the 
crown. 

Henry 1. was now at the height of all his glory, 
being nearly the most powerful monarch of his time, 
and left without a competitor to dispute his usurpations. 
But the vengeance of Heaven, however slow it may be, 
is certain, and the evil days which awaited the descen- 
dants of the Conqueror were not yet exhausted. Prince 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 23 

William, his only son and heir, perished by shipwreck, 
near Barfleur in Normandy, on his return to England. 
In that young Prince the male line of the Conqueror 
became extinct ; and Henry himself, who had never 
recovered from his loss, died a few years after : — a 
signal instance of the just retributions of Providence, 
and of the perfect vanity of unprincipled ambition. 

The reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I., 
were attended with many events, which though not of 
a political nature, naturally affected the islands. Some 
of them were the following : — 

The celebrated Castle of Gouray, or Mount Grgueil, 
whatever might have been the date of its original 
foundation, its actual fortifications were decidedly 
Norman ; though, as we have said before, it is not 
probable that a post, in those ages so apparently im- 
pregnable, should have been left unfortified by any of 
the ancient possessors of the island. 

The first crusade where Duke Robert distinguished 
himself, introduces the noble name of De Carteret, 
which acquired afterwards so much merited celebrity 
in the local history of Jersey. Regnault De Carteret, 
who followed that chivalrous prince in his expedition 
to the Holy Land, had large possessions in Jersey, as 
well at the small town of Carteret, on the adjoining 
continent. Hence it is highly probable that several of 
the natives of Jersey went in the train of their feudal 
lords in that religious but chimerical enterprise. 

It had not been many years before this, that Tan- 
cred, a Norman gentleman of Hauteville le Guichard, 
a village near Coutances, left Normandy with his 
twelve sons in search of adventures, in the course of 
which, having conquered the southern parts of Italy, 



24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and the island of Sicily, they founded there, what is 
now called the kingdom of the two Sicilies. The 
family of those chivalrous champions maintained 
themselves on that throne for about 150 years, or till 
1195. • 

In 1125, William, the son of Hamon, founded the 
Abbey of St. Helier, at the place where that holy man 
had suffered martyrdom from the Norman pagans 250 
years before. It was built on the present site of 
Elizabeth Castle, and was liberally endowed with 
revenues in the*, island, and on the Continent. It 
nourished for a period of sixty-two years, when it 
was annexed to the Abbey of the Vow at Cherbourg 
on the following occasion. The Empress Matilda, the 
mother of Henry II., having, during a voyage from 
England, encountered a violent storm, and being in 
danger of perishing, she vowed that if it should please 
God to preserve her, she would build an Abbey, and 
sing a hymn of thanksgiving to the Holy Virgin, on 
the first land that she might reach. Soon after this 
the coast of Cherbourg appeared, when the pilot, in 
the exultation of the moment, addressed her these 
words — " Sing, Queen, here is the land." The 
name of " Chanter erne" has remained to the creek, in 
which she landed at Cherbourg, where she sang her 
hymn, and built the Chapel of St. Mary of the Vow. 
That chapel, though often destroyed, was as often 
rebuilt, and is still used, as a place for holy worship. 

Matilda soon after founded an Abbey, which from 
its site, and the accomplishment of her vow, was 
named the Abbey of Cherbourg of the Vow. Many 
years afterwards, in 1185, Walter, the then archbishop 
of Rouen, and his brother Benjamin, then Abbot of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 25 

Cherbourg, obtained a papal bull, and the king's per- 
mission to annex the Abbey of St. Helier in Jersey to 
the former, though the latter was the more consider- 
able of the two. Robert, the Abbot of St. Helier, was 
preferred to Cherbourg ; but that annexation was 
highly prejudicial to the Abbey of St. Helier, which 
became in consequence a priory dependent on Cher- 
bourg, and was not allowed to have more than a prior 
and five canons. The connection between those two 
religious houses continued till the Reformation. But 
mark the instability of human affairs I The very ruins 
of the Abbey of St. Helier have disappeared, and 
nothing but the small and solitary hermitage of its 
martyred patron now remains. The Abbey of the 
Vow has also been dismantled in the storms of the 
French revolution. It was there that Louis XVI. 
lodged, when he visited Cherbourg in 1786. Who 
could have then thought that so soon it would be as 
the ruined Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage ? 
That venerable Abbey is now used for a naval hos- 
pital, and of all its ancient buildings, nothing remains 
but the hall and the refectory. 

Henry II. was the most powerful of all the Norman 
princes ; but it does not seem that any of the English 
historians have remarked that his continental domi- 
nions included all the coast of France, from the 
frontiers of Spain to the utmost limits of Normandy ; 
his subsequent acquisition of Britany by the marriage 
of one of his sons with the heiress of that duchy being 
within that line. Perhaps that was thought to be of 
little consequence in that remote age, or that the pos- 
session of such a large extent of coast, with several 
sea-ports, would in future times secure to France a 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

large naval preponderance. Could it have then been 
taken advantage of, as it would be now, the superior 
fortune of Henry, would have stifled the growth of the 
French monarchy, which was yet in its infancy. But 
how transitory is human greatness ! In less than 
twenty years from Harry's death, that mighty colossus 
of power had fallen to the ground, never to rise again. 
We are now come to the inglorious and disastrous 
reign of John, which dismembered for ever continental 
Normandy from Britain. The distinct character of 
that pious, high minded, and warlike people is to be 
sought for in the days of its prosperity and indepen- 
dence, from Rollo to the reign of John. After that 
eventful period, the Normans became as aliens in the 
land of their fathers, their national pride and spirit 
left them, a few great families emigrated, the rest 
submitted ; — but the islands alone remained unsub- 
dued. It was thus that the great mass of the people 
lost their nationality, by adopting French manners and 
customs ; while the gentry vied in subservience and 
adulation to their new sovereigns, who after three 
hundred years had thus dispossessed the weakest and 
the most criminal of the descendants of Rollo. As a 
people, the Normans were now politically extinct, 
except in these diminutive fragments of them, which 
from that time began to form a separate community in 
the Channel Islands, which in their usages, their ap- 
pearance, their laws, and their language, still showed 
a spirit of independence, and that rooted aversion to a 
French connection, which proved that they differed as 
much from that people, as they do from any other 
foreign European nation. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 27 

The Jerseymen of the present age are the descen- 
dants of these vassals, who followed William the 
Conqueror to Hastings ; of those knights who, with 
Duke Robert, expelled the infidels from the Holy 
Land, or of those chivalrous adventurers who accom- 
panied Tancred to found a new kingdom in the south 
of Italy. 

The present race of Islanders has not degenerated ; 
though the enterprises of desolating warfare, and the 
individual exploits of romantic bravery, have been ex- 
changed under better auspices for the more beneficial 
extension of commerce and navigation. Nor have 
they been less renowned than their ancestors for having 
produced the loyal, the brave, and the wise in such 
men as Sir George De Carteret, Lord De Saumarez, 
the late Duke of Bouillion, and the two Brocks. A 
country that can produce such men, may be proud of 
its nationality, and cannot but be eminently solicitous 
to continue in its distinct and separate state. So far 
then from being a conquered or dependent dominion, 
they may vie in nationality, with the Anglo-Saxon, or 
with any other people of Europe. That nation has 
now lasted for more than nine centuries, with a distinct 
language, and with a distinct permanence of jurisdic- 
tion, which has been guaranteed to them, by a long 
succession of sovereigns, as the reward of their inviolable 
and undiminished loyalty. And may that attachment 
to their British connection be for ever ? 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Effects of the Conquest of Normandy. — Character of King 
John. — The Islands escape subjugation. — The Norman pro- 
prietors lose their lands in Jersey. — Loyalty of the De 
Carter ets.— Constitutions of King John.— -Charters repeat- 
edly granted by other Kings. — The Islands as neutral ports . 
— Frequent French Invasions. — Repulse of Du Guesclin 
from Gouray. — The reigns of Richard IT., Henry IV., and 
Henry V., uninteresting. 

A new era began for the Channel Islands with the 
beginning of the thirteenth century. We are now 
come to that highly important period, when Normandy 
lost its national independence, and was again reduced 
to the form of a French province. That dismember- 
ment was felt by England as a severe humiliation, and 
occasioned the most bitter national animosities, which 
caused almost interminable wars for almost 300 years ; 
nor did the chimerical projects of recovering the 
English continental provinces, seem to have been 
abandoned till the accession of the house of Tudor in 
1485. It is not here our object to examine whether 
the loss of those territories, which were at a distance 
from the centre of the monarchy, and which could 
hardly have been defended from the attacks of a power- 
ful and inimical nation, was not ultimately beneficial 
to Britain. But as to the islands, it was fortunate for 
them that they were not swallowed up in that general 
dismemberment ; as that circumstance had the effect of 



30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

strengthening their connection with England, and 
brought them at once within its more immediate 
protection, but without strictly incorporating them 
with Britain. That dismemberment gradually assimi- 
lated them to British views and feelings, and in course 
of time put them in possession of all the blessings that 
belong to British subjects, such as civil liberty, industry, 
wealth, and the protestant religion. 

The character of King John belongs to history, and 
after so many ages, it may be judged without the 
influence of fear or the prejudices of partiality. It 
would be unnecessary to enter into minute particulars, 
when it is well known, that it was the most unfor- 
tunate, and the most degraded reign in all the annals 
of Britain. After having been an undutiful son, and a 
faithless brother, he usurped the crown over the 
children of a deceased elder brother. The son, Prince 
Arthur, disappeared, and it is supposed was murdered, 
by the orders or the connivance of his unnatural uncle ; 
and his sister, the Princess Eleanor, of Britany, was 
doomed to a perpetual imprisonment in the Castle of 
Bristol, where she lingered for forty years till her 
death. Had such horrors existed in private life, what 
state of society would have tolerated such a monster ? 
Such an offender would not have been suffered to exist ; 
and history shows that tyrants, in almost every case, 
have not escaped the punishment which was due to 
their crimes. The King of France, who was the suze- 
rain lord of John, took advantage of the indignation 
and the disaffection which those atrocities excited 
among his subjects. John was three times cited to 
appear before the High Court of Parliament of the 
King of France, in his quality of Duke of Normandy, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 31 

to answer to a charge of felony for the murder of his 
nephew. To such an indignity, and its consequent 
danger he refused to submit, and the summons having 
been three times repeated, judgment was awarded 
against him for contumacy and parricide, in consequence 
of which his extensive dominions in France were 
ordered to be seized and reunited to that crown, as 
having been forfeited by his condemnation. 

Philip Augustus, the King of France, was appointed 
to carry the sentence into execution, — a commission 
which he gladly accepted, and to which his crooked 
policy had long been directed. The sentence con- 
sidered as an act of that severe justice, to which the 
high as well as the low ought to be amenable, had 
been deservedly incurred, and if it had only reached 
the guilty sovereign personally, he would have fallen 
unpitied. But on the other hand, there can be no 
doubt that nothing can justify the defection of the sub- 
ject to a foreign enemy, when such conduct would be 
productive of the greater evil of revolutionising a coun- 
try, or subjecting it to a foreign yoke. 

Philip was highly desirous of reducing Normandy, 
which, ever since it had been separated from France, 
had given more trouble and uneasiness to that country 
than all its neighbours put together. He therefore, 
lost no time to direct all his efforts to succeed in that 
enterprise; and here it cannot fail to be remarked, 
from the example of John, how weak and how 
wretched was that prince, who lost his best means 
of defence in the alienation of the love of his people. 
The Normans had not yet degenerated from their an- 
cient valour. No nation had ever been better trained 
to the use of arms, when on account of their vicinity to 

D 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the French territory, they and their ancestors had been 
kept in an almost continual state of warfare. They 
hated them as being their old and natural enemies, 
with whom they had had so many encounters during the 
whole of the long period — they had been settled on the 
continent as a separate nation. The spirit of dis- 
affection was now, however, widely spread, and they 
suffered themselves to be an easy conquest to Philip. 
Some of the towns made a moderate resistance ; but it 
was Rouen that stood out the longest. The greater 
part, however, opened their gates voluntarily to Philip, 
and received him within their walls as a deliverer. A 
change so sudden and so unexpected in the minds of 
men could only have been occasioned by hatred of the 
usurpation of their King, and of his cruel treatment of 
the helpless orphans of his departed brother. It 
would, however, have been wiser for the Normans to 
have resisted, and trusted that the reign of John would 
soon pass away, when a more virtuous sovereign would 
bring back things into their ancient channel, rather 
than have submitted to a foreign power, to prevent a 
temporary usurpation, which would break down their 
ancient independence, and weigh them down under the 
galling yoke of the severest oppression. Thus hap- 
pened the separation of Normandy from England, 137 
years after the two countries had been united under one 
sovereign, by the decisive victory of Hastings, by Wil- 
liam the Conqueror, and it became again a province of 
France, 312 years after it had been erected into an in- 
dependent state. 

It has always been thought extraordinary that the 
Channel Islands were not subjugated with the rest of 
John's dominions. It was not because they could have 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 33 

offered no effectual resistance, or because their sovereign 
could not have given them any assistance. Nor was in 
that age the naval superiority of England sufficiently 
established to have prevented an invasion. It is true 
that the islands were twice invaded during that reign, 
and that the invaders were as often repulsed by the 
bravery of the inhabitants, whose loyalty in the general 
defection of Normandy had been unshaken for their 
hereditary sovereign. It is not, however, to be supposed 
that if King Philip had made any serious attack upon 
the islands, he would not ihave succeeded, consi- 
dering their then defenceless state, from the scantiness 
of their resources, and the poverty of their population. 
Scarcely any memorials of those invasions of the islands 
have remained ; and if they were at all seized by the 
enemy, it is equally evident that they were not per- 
manently occupied. All this may be granted without 
any disparagement to the honor or the loyalty of the 
inhabitants. Probably the islands owed their safety 
to their being of difficult access, and to their being 
thought of little value. Philip had too many objects 
of greater importance on which to fix his attention, 
and could not spare a sufficient force to succeed in an 
enterprise, which would have repaid neither for the 
dangers, nor for the expenses to be incurred. Be that 
however as it may, the islands were preserved ; and 
their isolation from Normandy linked them but the 
closer to their sovereign, and rendered them if possible 
still more desirous than ever of the continuance of their 
British connection. 

As the result of this separation was that the Channel 
Islands would have in future to rely for protection on 
either of the two great neighbouring countries, they 



34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

wisely made their election of Britain, from which have 
been derived so many beneficial consequences, which 
have been handed down unimpaired to the present 
generation. As they became English, they gradually 
acquired advantages, which they would have never 
gained as French ; or rather they have been exempted 
from all the misfortunes which would have attended 
their connection with France, — such as that of a long 
depression under a despotic government, which would 
have left them in their original poverty and insignifi- 
cance, and made them the victims of religious thraldom 
and intolerant superstition. But above all, they have 
been enabled to escape from the terrible and sweeping 
vortex of the French revolution. 

Several of the Norman proprietors had also lands in 
Jersey, which they lost by confiscation for having 
submitted to the Conqueror, and preferred to stay in 
the country, where they had their most valuable 
estates. * But among the few, who had the courage to 
adhere to their sovereign, one noble family made the 
sacrifice of their patrimony in France, and settled on 
the lands which they still possessed in Jersey. That 
family was the De Carterets, the descendants of that 
Regnault De Carteret, who went with Duke Robert to 
the first crusade. And, indeed, for high deeds of 
glory and for local celebrity, through an uninterrupted 
continuation of ages, their name might compete with 
some of the most distinguished in the empire. It is, 
perhaps, a pleasing reflection to have sprung from a 
race of worthies, but that is of little value, if their 
descendants are in their declension, and rely on a long 
ancestry, which seems, in fact, but to upbraid them 
with their own inferiority. But, be that as it may, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH CF JERSEY. 35 

that family had the peculiar felicity of preventing, 
under King John, the islands from being seized by 
France, during the troubles of that prince, by repelling 
two distinct invasions within a few years. Again at a 
later period they delivered Jersey from the usurpation 
of the Count De Maulevrier ; and at another time, 
already ancient, but not so remote, Sir George De 
Carteret adhered with inviolable fidelity to the two 
Charles's in their adversity, — nor yielded Elizabeth 
Castle to the enemy, till after a protracted siege, and 
after having been the last to surrender in all the British 
dominions. A rare example of merit and good fortune, 
and almost unexampled in any history, that the same 
family should have saved their country from foreign 
conquest twice ; and again to have been " once," the 
last, whom dire necessity compelled to surrender 
their country to the galling yoke of a rigicidal 
usurpation. 

King John visited the islands about the end of his 
reign ; and is said to have been particularly careful in 
repairing its strong holds, and placing its various har- 
bours and landing places in the best state of defence. 
Gorey Castle, or in a more recent time, Mont Orgueil 
Castle, was already a considerable fortress, which after 
the repairs and the improvements laid out at different 
times, was till the invention of artillery deemed to be 
impregnable. 

That King who, under the intimidation of his En- 
glish barons, had yielded to them the great Charter, 
granted during his stay in Jersey, another Charter to 
its loyal inhabitants. As the former had been extorted 
by violence and compulsion, so this was the effect of 
approbation and gratitude on the part of the sovereign. 



36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

That charter has, in fact, been for the islanders what 
the great charter has been for the English. The Con- 
stitution of King John, as that charter is justly called 
in Jersey, have proved of the highest importance to 
its liberties, as being the foundation of all the rights, 
privileges, and immunities, which it enjoys to this day; 
the principal of which is, that it should be free from 
all foreign dependence, and own no subjection to any 
other power, or be under any other restriction than the 
immediate control of the crown, as administered by 
the Sovereign in Council. Hence the inhabitants are 
amenable but before a court in their own island, where 
they are to be judged by their own laws, and by native 
judges, whom on the authority of the charter, the free- 
holders themselves elect. The charter calls them sworn 
coroners, or jurats ; and, indeed, the popular election 
of coroners in England may probably be of the same 
origin, and be a remnant of the same usage. The 
constitution of Jersey was decidedly of a Norman 
origin, the enjoyment of which was confirmed to the 
inhabitants by that charter. It has affixed the seal to 
their nationality, which has enabled them to retain 
their language, manners, and customs ; and by pre- 
venting them from being totally assimilated to the 
English, it has continued them, as it has been already 
said, to be the only feeble, but interesting remnant of 
the once celebrated Norman nation. 

From this period all connection of the islands with 
Normandy ceased, which began to be considered both 
in war and peace, as a foreign country, and an integral 
part of France, with all those feelings of aversion and 
hostility, which till very lately had for so many ages 
existed between the two great countries. Henceforth 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY; 37 

the history of ihe islands becomes so much linked with 
that of England, that it is to be sought in that of the 
latter country. 

A few general features have however distinguished 
the islands during that period. Through so many 
reigns, and under so many sovereigns of very different 
characters and pursuits, their loyalty to them has been 
zealous, sincere, and persevering ; while their attach- 
ment to England has ever been, under all circum- 
stances, unbroken, and undiminished. Another feature 
in the history of the islands is, that they have been the 
favoured subjects of the Kings of England ; and that 
their charter, originally granted to them by King John, 
has been ratified, confirmed, and enlarged by most, if 
not all, their sovereigns till James II. On account of 
their exposed situation and liability to invasion, they 
obtained the most valuable privileges and immunities ; 
the most important of which is, that they are allowed 
to enjoy in every part of the empire all the rights of 
Englishmen, by being put on the same footing as 
natives, and not as aliens. For a long time also the 
islands were by mutual consent considered as neutral 
ports, where the vessels of the belligerents had a free 
access to come to, and go from, without any hindrance 
or molestation for the purposes of trade. They were 
well situated for the grant of such a neutrality ; and as 
they were small and poor, such a singular privilege 
did not then excite those naval or commercial jealou- 
sies, which made its continuance incompatible with a 
more advanced state of society. That principle still 
existed under Henry VIII.; but how much longer it 
remained is unknown. 



38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OE JERSEY. 

It is nevertheless remarkable that this neutrality was 
merely commercial, and did not extend beyond the 
facilities it gave for trading to the islands ; for during 
the whole time that it continued, the rage of hostility 
between England and France remained unmitigated, 
and the islands themselves had to repel some of the 
most critical invasions of their limited territories. 

The third feature of the annals of those islands, is 
the frequent invasions to which they have been ex- 
posed, and the perpetual state of alarm and anxiety, 
in which they have ever been kept in time of war. 
Those invasions were, however, particularly frequent 
during the reigns of the Plantagenets ; though it may 
be surmised, that many of them were merely predatory 
incursions, which indeed inflicted severe injuries at 
the time, but which led to no permanent results. It 
is lib ewise very extraordinary, that the islands were 
not alternately taken and retaken, as might have been 
expected ; but that in every instance the enemy were 
repulsed. It is, however, an exception, that Guernsey 
was occupied by the French during three years in the 
early part of the reign of Edward III. or 1338. It 
was granted by Philip de Valois to his son John, after- 
wards King of France, the same who was taken pri- 
soner at Poitiers by Edward the Black Prince. 

After passing over several of the invasions of the 
islands, under the successors of John, which, probably, 
were not very important, and of which scarcely any 
memorials remain, till the reign of Edward III., about 
1331, when the French sent a powerful fleet to 
cruise in the British Channel. Southampton was 
taken and pillaged ; and it was then that the island 
of Guernsey fell into the hands of the enemy. Jer- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 39 

sey escaped from conquest by the obstinate resist- 
ance and loyalty of the inhabitants, whose invaders 
were at length compelled to raise the siege of the then 
impregnable fortress of Gorey Castle. Its Governor, 
Drogo de Barentin, one of the principal gentlemen of 
the island, fell in one of the attacks upon it. The 
name, though disguised, was probably the same, as 
that of the noble family of the Barringtons in En- 
gland, and had a common origin from the small town 
of Barenton in Normandy. The name of that noble 
family might have had also some reference to Barentin, 
a village near Rouen, through which the new railroad 
to Paris passes. He was succeeded in his command 
by Renaud De Carteret, a native of the island, and not 
inferior to the brave De Barentin in valour and capa- 
city. The defence was continued by the chivalrous 
Renaud, till the siege was raised. 

Part of the reign of Edward III., was a series of 
victories and triumphs, and during that period the 
islands were in no danger. The peace of Bretigny be- 
tween the two crowns secured the connection of the 
islands with their natural Sovereign, the King of Eng- 
land. But unhappily the successes of Edward were 
not of long continuance, and his old age was chequered 
by the most fatal vicissitudes. The military affairs of 
France were directed by the Constable Du Guesclin, 
when hostilities were renewed some years after the 
peace of Bretigny. The Constable was one of the 
ablest, and the most successful generals of his time, 
was soon recovered nearly all that Edward had acquired 
on the Continent during the late wars. 

The island of Jersey had then to sustain the most 
formidable invasion, which it had yet experienced. 



40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Du Guesclin, after having taken several towns in Bri- 
tany, among which was that of Brest, sailed from that 
port to invade Jersey with an army of 10,000 men. 
He was accompanied by the Duke of Bourbon, and 
some of the noblest of the chivalry of France. The 
whole of this invasion is fully described in the history 
of Britany by D'Argentre. It does not appear that 
the inhabitants attempted to oppose his landing. On 
the contrary, they left the enemy masters of the open 
country, and placed under God all their hopes of deli- 
verance in the strength of their castle, and in the 
courage of the brave men, who had been entrusted with 
its defence. Nothing was omitted on the part of the 
assailants, after the manner of carrying on sieges in 
that age. Some of the outer walls were thrown down 
by sap, but that did not affect the main body of the 
place. The castle was several times attempted to be 
carried by storm, but every time it ended in the disaster 
and repulse of the assailants, some of whose bravest 
men perished in those attempts. But though the 
besiegers could not take the castle, neither did this 
resistance oblige them to raise the siege. On the 
other hand, the besieged found famine to be growing 
among them, with all the despondence which arises 
from a protracted and hopeless resistance. At length 
both parties being wearied out with this kind of war- 
fare, they came to a composition, by which it was 
stipulated that the besieged should surrender the 
castle, unless they should be succoured before Michael- 
mas day ; that in the mean time there should be a 
suspension of hostilities, and that the Constable after 
having received hostages for the performance of the 
articles, should break up his camp and depart. Such 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 41 

compositions were then frequent, the terms of which 
were generally executed with good faith. The practice 
seems indeed to have been introduced to save the 
honor of both parties, when they were equally tired 
with the length of a siege. The Constable in conse- 
quence returned to Britany, where he was soon after 
informed, that an English fleet was out at sea, with 
the professed object of relieving the castle. This 
seasonable relief prevented the composition from being 
carried into effect, and the castle remained untaken. 
Thus ended that invasion, as one might say, most 
gloriously for Jersey ; since its fortress had been per- 
haps the only one which had baffled all the efforts of 
that great and fortunate warrior, when every other 
place which had belonged to England on the Con- 
tinent, and which he had attacked, had invariably 
fallen in the struggle. 

The two succeeding reigns of Richard II. and Henry 
IV., produced no events worthy to be mentioned, except 
a predatory invasion of Jersey during the latter reign, 
which was easily repulsed. Henry V., having been 
inforjned of the great exploits, which had been per- 
formed in the defence of Gouray Castle, changed its 
name to that of Mount Orgueil, which it has retained 
ever since. He was succeeded by Henry VI., a weak 
and inoffensive, but misguided and unhappy prince. 
The latter part of his reign was particularly unfor- 
tunate, on account of the disputed claims to the crown 
by the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Though 
it does not appear; that the islands took any active 
part in those civil wars, which desolated England at 
that period, the consequences of them, however, hur* 
ried on Jersey to the very verge of destruction. 



CHAPTER V. 

Reign of Henry VI. — Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands 
erected into a kingdom in favor of the Earl of Warwick. 
— Some account of the ancient Sovereignty of the Isle of 
Wight. — Grants to the Fitz Osbornes, the Rivers, the Ver- 
nons } andthe Beauchamps. — Sir Richard Worsley's account 
of that petty kingdom. — Conjectures and refections on what 
would have resulted from an independence of the Channel 
Islands. 

The reign of Henry VI. was particularly unfortunate 
for the Channel Islands — not, however, on account of 
any part which they had taken in the contest between 
the rival houses of York and Lancaster — but because 
events occurred which had twice nearly separated them 
from their British connection, the former of which was 
when Henry Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was 
crowned King of the Isle of Wight and of the Isles of 
Jersey and Guernsey, in 1445, by Henry VI., and after- 
wards created Duke of Warwick by the same sovereign 
towards the latter end of his reign. 

It is known from history that the Isle of Wight had 
been anciently held as an independent sovereignty. 
William Fitz Osborne was one of the principal Norman 
warriors who had followed William the Conqueror, 
and fought with him at Hastings. He was made Earl 
of Hereford ; and in 1070, that monarch bestowed upon 
him the Isle of Wight, to be held by him as freely as 
the King himself held the realm of England. This 



44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Fitz Osborne was "William's kinsman and confidential 
friend, and had been marshal of the Norman army at 
Hastings. This Lord held his high dignity but a short 
time, having fallen in battle four years after on the 
continent. He was succeeded by his second son Roger 
de Bretteville, who having been afterwards concerned 
in a conspiracy to depose the King, he lost the Isle of 
Wight, and his earldom of Hereford reverted to the 
crown. As to himself he was condemned to perpetual 
imprisonment, in which he ended his days in 1086. 

The island was again granted to a subject by Henry 
J., in 1105, who gave it to Richard de Rivers, Earl of 
Devon, from whom it descended to his son Baldwin. 
That baron having espoused the cause of the Empress 
Maud, endeavoured, but in vain, to defend this terri- 
tory against King Stephen. He was obliged to fly for 
his life ; but afterwards, when an accommodation took 
place, between the contending parties, he was restored 
to his possessions. After having passed lineally 
through several of the Rivers, the Isle of Wight 
devolved by marriage, in 1 184, to William de Vernon, 
a collateral branch of that family, whose descendants 
held it till 1293, when Isabel de Fortibus, the heiress 
of the last Earl, surrendered her interest in that island 
to King Edward the First, who annexed it to the 
crown, from which it has never been again separated, 
except during two short interruptions. The former 
happened in the case of Henry Beauchamp, who was 
crowned King of the Isles of Wight, Jersey and Guern- 
sey, in 1445 ; and in that of Richard Widvil, the father- 
in-law of Edward IV., who was created Lord of the 
Isle of Wight, in 1466. The reason that he did not 
also obtain the sovereignty of the Channel Islands 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 45 

was, that Jersey had not yet been rescued from the 
power of the Count de Maulevrier. 

This information about that Earl of Warwick who 
was King of the Isle of Wight, is derived from Leland, 
Dr. Heylin, and Sir Richard Worsley's History of 
that island, whose work contains an engraving of 
"Henry Duke of Warwick, King of the Isle of Wight," 
and his sister, who married the Duke of Somerset. 
They are represented kneeling before an altar. Sir 
Richard gives also in a note, a Latin extract from 
Leland, from which it appears that Henry, Earl of 
Warwick, enjoyed the high favour of Henry VI., by 
whom he was crowned King of the Isle of Wight* 
That monarch granted him also the Castle of Bristol, 
and the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Sir Richard 
observes, however, that very little notice has been taken 
of this singular event by historians. Selden has men- 
tioned it in his titles of honor. 

All these give a scanty information, indeed, with 
respect to the Channel Islands, although it proves that 
Warwick was in some sense a King ; but of the extent 
of his royal jurisdiction, no precise information remains, 
nor whether he was to hold his sovereignty, as a fief, 
under the English monarchs. If so, it was certainly 
with more privileges than Barons had in general, and 
it would seem clear that all the revenues of those 
Islands were left at their disposal. 

Worsley continues the account of what became of 
that petty kingdom, after the death of the Duke of 
Warwick. " In the 26th year of Henry VI., Edmund, 
Duke of Somerset, married the sister and heiress of 
Henry, Duke of Warwick, before mentioned, as King 
of the island ; who having some time before sup- 



46 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

planted the Duke of York, in the regency of France? 
obtained a grant of this island, to him, and the heirs 
male of his body, in satisfaction, as it was alleged, for 
certain sums of money, due to him from the King's 
Exchequer, and for the duties of Petty Customs in 
the port of London, which were part of his inhe- 
ritance." 

The Duke's prosperity was, however, of short dura- 
tion, he died in 1455 ; and his two immediate succes- 
sors, Du&es of Somerset, were involved in the misfor- 
tunes of the House of Lancaster, and perished both 
on the scaffold in 1463 ? and in 1471. 

After that date this ephemerous kingdom vanished^ 
and the islands of which it was composed have been 
inalienably reunited to the British monarchy. But it 
is nevertheless a matter of curious speculation to in- 
quire what would have been the probable con- 
sequences, if that limited territory had been suffered to 
exist as an independent state till our times ; and whe- 
ther it might not have had a prospect of rivalling the 
histories of Geneva, of the Hanseatic towns, or of the 
republics of Lucca, or of San Marino. 

In the first place, the importance of the Isle of 
Wight is too great, and its vicinity too striking, for 
England to have consented to its permanent dismem- 
berment. As to the Channel Islands, had they been 
made into a small independent state, and their political 
existence had been suffered to continue, some very 
curious consequences might have been the result of 
such a measure. The feelings of the inhabitants would 
not have been violated, by having been transferred 
against their will to a foreigner, as in the case of 
Maulevrier j but as their new sovereign, the Earl of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 47 

Warwick, was a gallant soldier, a man of high rank, 
arid an Englishman, their subjection to him would 
have been received with far less reluctance ; still an 
insuperable objection would have remained, that it 
would have dissolved their English connection for 
ever. 

Had their independence been suffered to remain 
through the forbearance, or the mutual jealousies of 
the foreign powers, their situation would always have 
been precarious, like that of other small European 
states, some of which after so many revolutions are 
still suffered to exist. But they would have gained 
nothing bv that political change ; for with the right to 
govern themselves without any external control, they 
would have incurred all the evils of civil discord, such 
as distracted the modern Italian republics during the 
middle ages. In point of trade, they would have had 
all the advantages of free ports, and their position 
might have rendered them as prosperous as any of the 
Hanseatic towns of Germany. Nevertheless, in an- 
other point of view, their insular situation would have 
been unfavourable, as leaving them more exposed to 
attack, and more likely, from their continual inter- 
course with strangers, to be brought into collision with 
foreign powers. Malta was the last of the smaller 
European islands, which had maintained its inde- 
pendence, but it expired in 1798. As to Corfu and 
its dependencies it have since been formed into the 
Republic of the seven Ionian Islands, which was the 
consequence of the downfall of the once powerful 
republic of Venice. Its existence is rather nominal 
than otherwise, for even that empty shadow of national 
independence, could not be maintained without the 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

vigilant interference, and the incessant protection of 
Great Britain. 

But is it more conducive to the happiness of a small 
community to be possessed of political independence, 
rather than to form part of a large one ? The small 
republic is seldom involved in the quarrels of its dis- 
tant neighbours, but it has fewer securities against 
domestic commotions, occasioned either by a tyrannical 
aristocracy, or by the licentiousness of an ungovernable 
mob, and above all, by the perpetual danger of being 
swallowed up to suit the convenience, or the aggran- 
disement of some more powerful state, a striking in- 
stance of which has occurred within these few months 
by the annexation of the Republic of Cracow to the 
Austrian Empire. 

A large government is better enabled to protect all 
its subjects, and to overawe the efforts of hostile, or 
evil disposed neighbours ; but on the other hand, the 
different parts are ofte n brought in contact with inte- 
rests to which they are foreign, and the parts are 
generally sacrificed to promote the power of the whole 
mass ; or if the government is despotic, every thing is 
rendered subservient to the pride, the caprices, or the 
ambition of one man. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

Queen Margaret of Anjou. — Her intrigues to deliver Jersey 
to France. — Mount Orgueil Castle surrendered to the Count 
de Maulevrier. — His endeavours to render his government 
popular.— Philip De Carteret, of St. Ouen, and six of the 
parishes resist him for six years. — Fall of the House of 
Lancaster. — Arrival of Sir Richard Harliston at Jersey. 
— Mount Orgueil invested by sea and land. — The French 
garrison capitulates. — Charter and acknowledgment of 
Edward IV. — Perrotine Famget. — Misfortunes of Har- 
liston. — Policy of Henry VII. — French invasion under 
Edward VI. 

Margaret of Anjou, the Queen of Henry VI., was 
of the Royal blood of France, a woman of uncommon 
talents, and of a most persevering spirit. In propor- 
tion as the fortunes of her husband declined, she 
sought for new resources to retrieve his losses. She 
accordingly negotiated with Peter de Brese, a French 
nobleman, and Count of Maulevrier, to put him in 
possession of the Channel Islands, as the consideration 
for espousing her cause. The negotiation, however, 
was carried on apparently without the knowledge of 
the King of France, who was apprehensive that it 
might have involved him in a war with England. 
Maulevrier was a leader of some military reputation, 
and found no difficulty in raising a body of 2,000 
veterans, who were desirous to try their fortunes with 
him in an expedition to England. A part of that body 



50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

was landed in Northumberland, where between the 
swords of the enemy, and the storms which they en- 
countered at sea, the greater number of them perished. 
Maulevrier had now to receive his reward, and the 
Queen gave orders that he should be put in possession 
of Mount Orgueil Castle. Sir John Nanfan was then 
governor of the Castle ; he farmed the island under 
the crown, and it is even uncertain whether he was a 
British subject.* To throw, however, as dark a veil 
as possible over that nefarious transaction, and to save 
appearances for the governor, it was contrived that he 
should be surprised and seized in his bed. As all 
resistance in that case became impossible, he imme- 
diately surrendered the island. Thus for the nrst^time 
did treachery introduce an enemy within the gates of 
Mount Orgueil Castle. As soon as the Count de 
Maulevrier received intelligence of his success, he 
repaired to Jersey, to establish his newly acquired 
authority. No acclamations of the people welcomed 
him to its shores. It was everywhere the reluctant 
submission of a high spirited and loyal race, and that 
sullen, but expressive silence, which dared not openly 
to mourn over the loss of their independence. The 
Count, however, had recourse to all the means of in- 
sinuation which might gain him popularity, and allay 
the angry feelings of a discontented population. He 
assumed the title of Lord of the Isles, under his Sove- 
reign Lord, the King of France, and at a solemn 
assembly which he held in Mount Orgueil Castle, he 

* The name is written Nanfan in all the old manuscripts, 
•which a careless transcriber would easily corrupt into L'Enfant, 
especially as there would be a kind of connection between the 
name, and the negligence of that officer. His case affords a 
striking resemblance to that of Major Moses Corbet's surrender 
of Jersey, on the 6th of January, 1781. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 5] 

confirmed all the privileges of the inhabitants in as full 
a manner as they had ever enjoyed them under any of 
their former Kings. He also made some valuable 
additions to their charter, defined the manner of admi- 
nistering justice, and ordered a register to be kept of 
the transfer of all real property, an improvement which 
was not however carried into effect till almost 150 
years after, under the government of Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh. When aversion or hatred have once taken root 
in the human mind, it is seldom that either gentle 
usage or forbearance can exchange them for loyalty 
and affection. The Count was coldly received by the 
assembly ; and out of the Castle, he was openly re- 
sisted. The island is divided into twelve parishes ; the 
six eastern of which, as being nearest to the Castle, 
reluctantly submitted to the usurper. The other half 
made an obstinate resistance, and repelled all the 
efforts of Maulevrier during six years. This was 
probably no more than a war of skirmishes, as the 
Count and the inhabitants were severally left to their 
own individual resources ; for the contest would soon 
have been decided, if the Kings of England or France 
had taken an active part in those hostilities. It was 
then that Providence raised a distinguished patriot to 
avenge the wrongs of the islanders, in the person of 
Philip De Carteret, of St. Ouen, a name that seemed 
as destined in the annals of Jersey, to appear at the 
head of their countrymen on all great emergencies, to 
defend them and to succeed. After encountering 
many dangers, and performing individually some of 
the most chivalrous exploits, he checked the further 
progress of Maulevrier, during those six eventful years, 
till at length the hour of deliverance arrived. Had 



52 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

such a man, and with such inadequate means, rescued 
his native island from thraldom in the heroical ages of 
Greece, his name would have descended to us as one 
of the brightest ornaments of the classic page. 

After such a protracted state of hostilities, it was 
evident that neither of those chieftains could expel the 
other from the island ; but matters were now altered 
in England by the quiet settlement of Edward IV. on 
the throne. The Lancastrian party had been con- 
quered, its chiefs had either perished in the field, or 
on the scaffold, while the few who had escaped from 
proscription lived in exile and poverty in foreign lands. 
It was not therefore likely, that Edward would ratify 
any compromise made by the Queen of Henry VI., to 
alienate any part of his dominions. He, therefore, 
fitted out a fleet to recover what had been lost, and 
gave the command to Sir Richard de Harliston, an 
officer of great merit and acknowledged loyalty. He 
first sailed down the Channel to the relief of Jersey, 
and having landed, he had an interview with Philip 
De Carteret, at his seat, with whom he concerted mea- 
sures to reconquer the island. Their plans had been 
so well contrived that the enemy were surprised, and 
that one morning at day-break they found the castle 
was invested by sea and land. The blockading fleet 
indeed English ; but the land army which besieged the 
Castle was entirely composed of natives, under the 
command of the gallant De Carteret. The French 
commander to whom the defence of Mount Orgueil had 
been entrusted, did not show less courage and resolution. 
The fortress was not indeed attempted to be taken by 
storm, as had been done in the siege, which it had sus- 
tained against the Constable Du Guesclin about one 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 53 

hundred years before; still there were many severe 
attacks, in which many of the inhabitants were slain ; 
and among the rest, the " Seigneur" of Rozel, a gentle- 
man of good property, and one of their principal 
leaders. The sallies of the besieged were frequent, in 
attempting to break through the lines of the besiegers ; 
but they were fruitless, and many of them paid for 
their temerity with the loss of their lives. The be- 
siegers now limited their operations to a blockade, and 
trusted for their eventual success to the slow effects of 
disease and famine in compelling their enemies to sur- 
render. This state of things lasted for nineteen 
weeks, during which time the besieged did all that 
could be done by brave and skilful men to obtain re- 
lief 5 but force and stratagem were equally ineffectual. 
Their friends on the continent, who from the short 
distance were almost eye witnesses of the daily occur- 
rences of the siege, and who could not have been igno- 
rant of the critical situation of the Castle, either dared 
not, or could not come to their assistance. At length 
Surdeva], the governor, and Maulevrier's son-in-law, 
finding the situation untenable, was obliged to capi- 
tulate, which enabled him with his garrison to return 
to France. 

Never had Jersey been in so much danger before, 
and never had Providence more signally wrought than 
it had then for its deliverance. The islanders gained 
much honor by this siege ; and as the Castle had not 
yielded but to famine, its former reputation of being 
impregnable, still remained unimpaired. Edward IV. 
granted them a new Charter, with a special acknow- 
ledgement of their good service, which clause has been 
inserted in every subsequent Charter, to perpetuate 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the memory of their exploit. Those several Charters 
are on the whole but repetitions of each other, as they 
were confirmed by each sovereign at his succession, 
except on any particular occasion like the above, in 
which the retaking of Mount Orgueil was intro- 
duced. Something of the kind is also found in the 
Charter of Charles IT., where a compliment is paid to 
the loyalty of the inhabitants, who had thus rendered 
themselves worthy of the Royal favour. 

Perrotine Famget was the widow of Philip Johan, of 
Guernsey, w T ho had rendered services to Harliston 
during the siege. According to Mr. Falle, the his- 
torian, that brave leader rewarded her with a liberal 
grant of money and ground rents ; which, according 
to the present value of money, might be estimated at 
about £300. This fact is mentioned as highly 
honourable to the several individuals concerned, and 
as a strong proof of the good feeling which then 
existed between the sister islands. 

Harliston was rewarded with the government of the 
Channel Islands, and his daughter, an only child, was 
married to the eldest son of Philip De Carteret. Her 
marriage was one of extraordinary fecundity, and the 
high conjugal virtues which she displayed in adversity, 
have thrown over her an air of romance, and rendered 
her name one of the most distinguished of her sex. 
But after long years of prosperity, mark the vicissitudes, 
and the nothingness of all human affairs ! Harliston, 
in his old age, was attainted by Henry VII. for his 
attachment to the House of York. He fled, and died 
abroad in exile and poverty, a miserable dependent at 
the Court of the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, a sis- 
ter of Edward IV. Maulevrier had, however, long 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 55 

before preceded him to an honourable grave, having 
been killed at the battle of Mont l'Hery in the service 
of Louis XL 

It is from the reign of Henry VII. that we may date 
the abandonment of the long cherished, but chimerical, 
project entertained by the Sovereigns of England to 
conquer France, or even to recover those continental 
provinces, which had once belonged to their ancestors. 
Hence wars between the two countries became either 
less frequent, or of short duration, and caused not 
those immense exertions, which exhausted the national 
resources. This state of things may be said to have 
lasted till 1688, and William III , when the restless 
ambition of Louis XIV., and a regard for her civil 
and religious liberties, revived the long dormant 
animosities of England to France. It must not, how- 
ever, be supposed that during that long period of more 
than 200 years, the islands were not kept in an almost 
perpetual state of alarm. The short wars that occa- 
sionally happened, and even the very prospect of hos- 
tilities, were sufficient to produce that effect. Once only 
was the island in any real danger, when under Ed- 
ward VI., a French fleet landed a considerable force 
at Bouley Bay ; but being attacked by the inhabitants, 
who were posted on the higher grounds, they drove 
back the assailants to their ships with great slaughter. 
Several hundreds of the enemy perished on that 
occasion. Hence, if Jersey had fallen in that unex- 
pected attack, as Calais did a few years afterwards, it 
is probable that the enemy would have kept it, or at 
least would not have restored it but with reluctance, 
and under the influence of intimidation. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Reformation and Annexation of the Islands to the 
Diocese of Winchester. — Calvinism in Jersey .—Conse- 
quences of the Reformation. — Erection of Elizabeth Castle. 
— Sir Philip and Sir George De Carteret. — Charles II. 
visits Jersey twice. — Distinguished emigrants. — Charles I. 
and Hurst Castle. — The Commonwealth send an expedition 
against Jersey. — Sir George De Carteret opposes its landing 
without effect — Siege of Elizabeth Castle. — It capitulates. — 
Oppression of Jersey till the Restoration in 1660. 

Hitherto we have considered the islands but in their 
political relations and importance, and their inhabitants 
as a brave and loyal race, the interesting remnants of 
a once mighty nation, who, by a singular good fortune, 
have, during so many ages, never been subjected to 
any foreign power ; but have preserved their allegiance 
inviolate to the same and uninterrupted line of sove- 
reigns, all lineally descended from each other for 
almost a thousand years. Our ancestors in common 
with the rest of Europe, had been labouring under the 
spiritual bondage of gross ignorance and degrading 
superstition. The hour was now arrived, when those 
grievous fetters were to be broken, and man was again 
to appear in all the dignity of knowledge and of truth. 
The Reformation spread early to the Channel Islands, 
and it would seem from a variety of records still re- 
maining, that its doctrines had already taken a deep 
root there before the death of Henry VIII. Those 



58 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 

doctrines afterwards rapidly increased among the inha- 
bitants, and after having in some measure partaken 
in the religious oscillations and persecutions in Eng- 
land, the islands became, decidedly protestant. In 
1565, Queen Elizabeth finally removed them from the 
diocese of Coutances, and annexed them to that of 
Winchester. The annexation was not, however, imme- 
diately carried into effect ; for the first reformers in the 
islands were protestant ministers from France, who 
had fled from persecution in their own country, and 
who imported w r ith them, a leaning towards the 
opinions of Calvin. Nor was this surprising, when it 
is considered that the universal prevalence of the 
French language at that time, would have offered an 
almost insuperable obstacle to any exertions of the 
English reforming clergy. Hence, through the con- 
nivance of three successive governors, the islanders, 
though strictly protestant, remained unconnected with 
the Church of England, and formed for themselves with 
their ministers a body of church discipline on the 
model of that of Geneva. This is what has given rise 
to the opinion, that the islands were originally calvin- 
istic. This state of things continued during the whole 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, and a great part of that of 
James I. ; till after a certain degree of reluctance, and 
even opposition, and it being known, that it was at 
the special desire of the reigning monarch, they were 
indissolubly united in doctrine and in practice to the 
Church of England. This happened in 1623. 

We are not, however, here to consider the beneficial 
effects of the Reformation merely in a religious point 
of view, but in their consequences, which added a still 
more violent hatred to the heriditary aversion to any 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY." 59 

connection with France ; and rendered all the obstacles 
fourfold, which would militate against any future in- 
corporation of the islands with that monarchy. As to 
ourselves, who are persuaded that all their past and 
present prosperity has been derived from their British 
connection, w r e cannot be too thankful to Providence 
for that long and complicated concatenation of events, 
which has been traced in this historical sketch ; and 
which has been productive of so desirable an end, as 
the establishment of the civil and religious establish- 
ment of this small but interesting portion of the Bri- 
tish empire. 

Things, which in a general point of view would be 
wholly uninteresting, assume a particular importance 
in reference to some local object, with which they may 
be connected. The great changes which had occurred 
in the art of war, had destroyed the illusions which 
had so long attached to the impregnability of Mount 
Orgueil Castle. It was now found to be totally inade- 
quate to the defence of the island, and that in addition 
to the neglect of its fortifications, and the ravages of 
time, it was commanded by a hill, w T hich rendered it 
untenable. Accordingly, Queen Elizabeth, in 1586, 
ordered another Castle to be built on a small island in 
St. Aubin's bay, on the site of the ruined Abbey of St. 
Helier. This is what is now called Elizabeth Castle, 
which, with Fort Regent, on the Town-hill, commands 
the Town and Harbour of St. Helier. As for Mount 
Orgueil, it gradually decayed, as this new rival rose 
into importance ; and at this moment it presents little 
more than a mass of walls and buildings in the different 
stages of dilapidation, unable indeed to resist an in- 
vader, but still imposing on the beholder by its majestie 



60 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

site, and by the recollection of the chivalrous prowess 
of its defenders, who in the olden time so nobly re- 
pulsed Du Guesclin and Maulevrier. 

The reign of Charles 1. was productive of great 
misfortunes to the islands, for having inviolably per- 
sisted in their loyalty to their unhappy sovereign. 
Before the civil wars broke out, the celebrated Prynne 
had been confined for some time as a state prisoner in 
Mount Orgueil Castle, from which he was afterwards 
liberated. In 1643, the Parliament endeavoured by 
its emissaries to make itself master of Jersey ; but the 
loyal spirit of the inhabitants was too strong to be 
perverted by the intrigues of a few domestic traitors, 
and it soon declared for the King. Sir Philip De 
Carteret, of St. Ouen, and his nephew, Sir George De 
Carteret, appeared at the head of their countrymen on 
that glorious occasion. The former died soon after ; 
but the latter held the island for the king during 
eight years, in spite of all the efforts which could 
be made by the different factions, who had usurped the 
government of England. During those eight years 
Sir George, who was also an able naval officer, estab- 
lished, as it were, a small independent state, and made 
himself truly formidable to the Parliamentarian party, 
by the immense losses which his numerous privateers 
caused to their merchants, and by the constant relief 
and protection which he afforded to the several dis- 
tinguished fugitives from England, whom their loyalty 
had exposed to danger and persecution. The Prince 
of Wales, afterwards Charles II., finding his situation 
untenable in the west of England, sailed from the 
Scilly Islands with a large retinue to Jersey, and 
remained there for some months till he retired into 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 61 

France. The island was then full of illustrious emi- 
grants, the names of many of whom have been pre- 
served in its local chronicles, and in the traditions 
which have descended to us of those times. The 
names of a few may suffice, — Sir Edward Hyde, after- 
wards the illustrious Chancellor, Lord Clarendon, the 
poet Cowley, and Sir Richard Fanshawe, the Prince's 
Secretary ; but who is now better known as the first 
English translator of the Lusiad of Camoens. As to 
Sir Edward Hyde, he resided above two years in 
Elizabeth Castle, where it is supposed that he wrote 
then a great part of his history of the Rebellion. 

During the time that Charles I. was confined in 
Hurst Castle, near the Needles, and within the South- 
ampton water, it is said that a plan was formed in 
Jersey to deliver the monarch from captivity by having 
surprised the Castle. Such a plan indeed would have 
been dangerous and difficult, but not altogether hope- 
less or impracticable. Sir George was of a daring and 
enterprising spirit, he had sufficient naval means in 
his power, and such was the ardent loyalty of many of 
his followers, that he would have found numbers eager 
to enlist in so difficult and chivalrous an enterprize. 
The scheme seemed to be perfectly feasible. As all 
vessels going to Southampton must pass near that 
Castle, it was imagined that four or five vessels from 
the island, disguised as traders, to prevent suspicion, 
might have a sufficient number of men concealed 
under the hatches, who on approaching the Castle, 
and on a given signal, would suddenly start forth from 
their lurking place, and scale the walls. This tradition 
rests on the authority of Mr. Falle, the respectable 
historian of Jersey, who mentions that he had often 



62 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

heard it mentioned not long after the Restoration, and 
when he was still very young. It would not have 
been the first time that very strong fortresses had been 
taken by surprise, and their prisoners liberated. Had 
the attempt been made, and succeeded, the conse- 
quences which would have resulted from it, would have 
been immense, — the monarch would have been saved 
from the terrible catastrophe which awaited him, and 
his deliverers would have been rewarded with eternal 
glory. A dark and inexplicable fatality seems to have 
impended over the unfortunate Charles, which ren- 
dered ineffectual every effort that his friends ever 
made, or even intended to make in his favour. 

After the death of Charles I., his son was proclaimed 
here, it being then one of the very few places in all 
his dominions where such a ceremony would have 
been practicable. In 1650, Charles II., with his 
brother James, came over to Jersey, and resided for 
some months in Elizabeth Castle, from whence he 
went to France, having been prevailed upon to embark 
in that rash enterprize to Scotland, which ended so 
fatally for him and his adherents at the battle of Wor- 
cester. We pass over the detailed accounts of those 
times, as they belong rather to the history of England, 
than to a small local narrative like the present, from 
which every thing that is not strictly indispensable 
ought to be excluded. 

The incessant clamours of the English merchants 
about -the losses, which they experienced from Sir 
George De Carteret, drew on him at length the serious 
attention of the Commonwealth. It was not only 
expedient to subjugate those islands on account of the 
mischiefs, which they had so often inflicted, but to- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 07 JERSEY. 63 

punish them severely for their presumption. It was, 
therefore, determined to invade them, and a large fleet 
and army were prepared for that purpose, and the 
command of the former was given to no less a person 
than the celebrated Admiral Blake. The troops on 
board amounted to 5,000 men, the command of whom 
was entrusted to Haines, one of Cromwell's generals. 
After sailing from Portsmouth with a fair wind, part of 
the invading fleet came in sight of the island on the 
20th of October, 1651, and on the same day came to 
anchor in St. Ouen's Bay. Sir George had long fore- 
seen that invasion, and now he did all that a brave and 
prudent man could have recourse to on such an emer- 
gency. He immediately collected his small body of 
regular troops, and marched out with them and the 
insular militia to St. Ouen's Bay, and resolved to make 
the best defence in his power, — not that indeed with 
such inadequate forces he could reasonably expect to 
succeed ; but because there is something in the gene- 
rous mind, which forbids it to despond, and because it 
is nobler to make an ineffectual struggle in a glorious 
cause, than to yield tamely to an enemy. Some of his 
followers had long been disheartened, and were now 
wavering at the repeated ill-success of the Royal cause, 
and into them he endeavoured to infuse the same 
alacrity, which he possessed. On his reaching the 
beach of St. Ouen's Bay, he took immediate measures 
to oppose the enemy at their landing, and for three 
days he baffled all their efforts, during which time his 
little band was harassed with incessant watchings and 
fatigue in following the motions of the hostile fleet, as 
it hovered along the coast, and made demonstrations 
for landing. At length, on the third night when the 



61 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Royalists were exhausted with their severe and tanta- 
lising service, Blake succeeded in landing one of his 
battalions. They were immediately discovered, and 
Sir George charged them at the head of his little troop 
of horse ; the charge was desperate and bloody, in 
which many of the enemy were either killed or 
wounded. As this nightly landing of the enemy had 
been unexpected, a great part of Sir George's infantry 
had dispersed the evening before to seek for provisions 
in the neighbouring villages, and could not therefore 
be collected again in time to support their gallant 
leader. If then the infantry could have come up, it 
might indeed have protracted the contest ; but it was 
not to be imagined that Sir George would have even- 
tually succeeded against such an overwhelming force. 
In the mean time other troops were landed so fast, that 
all further opposition became useless, and that Sir 
George had no alternative left, but that of leaving the 
field, before his very inadequate force had been either 
overwhelmed and destroyed, or its retreat intercepted. 
Sir George reached Elizabeth Castle in safety, in 
which he shut up himself, with a garrison of 340 men, 
among whom were several of his friends and some of 
the principal inhabitants of the island. The open 
country was now abandoned to the invaders, who plun- 
dered the inhabitants, and made every part of it a scene 
of terror and desolation. The strong holds which had 
formerly baffled so many foreign enemies, such as 
Mount Orgueil Castle, and the Tower, or Fort of St. 
Aubin, scarcely made any resistance. Sir George was 
then summoned to surrender Elizabeth Castle, to which 
he indignantly returned a becoming answer. The 
place was then regularly invested and besieged for 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 65 

several weeks, during which time it was cannonaded 
with 36-poimders from a battery on the hill, which 
now forms the site of Fort Regent, and unfortunately 
with some effect, as one of the shells fell into the old 
Church of the Abbey of St. Helier, under which were 
the stores for keeping the provisions, as well as the 
powder magazine. That shell broke through two 
strong vaults, and blowing up, it scattered around ruin 
and destruction ; but what was still more lamentable, 
it killed forty of the best soldiers in the garrison, 
besides armourers, carpenters, and other artificers, who 
are indispensably necessary in a siege. Notwithstand- 
ing this terrible blow, and a certain degree of conster- 
nation which spread through the garrison, Sir George 
by his prudence kept ail quiet for the present, and held 
out some time longer till he could communicate with 
the king, who after the battle of Worcester had lately 
reached Paris in safety. Charles saw the hopelessness 
of Sir George's situation, and left him to act according 
to his own discretion. All hopes of relief being now 
at an end, and as no possible object could be answered 
by any further resistance, in addition that provisions 
were getting short, and that the garrison was daily be- 
coming weaker by disease, and the ordinary casualties 
of war, it became imperatively necessary to treat for a 
surrender. Sir George obtained a highly favourable 
capitulation, after having sustained a siege, which, 
according to tradition, lasted six weeks and two days ; 
nor could it have been either much longer or shorter, 
as the Parliamentarians landed on the 22d of October, 
1651, and took possession of that fortress on the 15 th 
of December following. The surrender of Elizabeth 
Castle [completed the conquest of the Island, which 



66 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

now for the first time was obliged to submit to the 
coercion of lawless force. It was, however, some kind 
of consolation, that the island remained as much as 
ever unsubdued by a foreign foe. It had now fallen, 
indeed, but it had been in an overwhelming struggle 
against the usurpations of revolted subjects. 

Evil years of oppression now rolled over the 
Norman Islands, which were treated with the greatest 
severity by Cromwell's military rulers. It was then 
that the parliamentarian individuals, who had excited 
so many disturbances in 1643, returned to the island, 
after an exile of eight years, and were restored to their 
estates, which Sir George had confiscated on his as- 
sumption of the local government. Michael Lempriere 
was confirmed in his office of chief magistrate, and 
held it till 1660, while D. Assigny was also rewarded 
with the living of St. Martin's, then supposed to be 
best in Jersey, and enjoyed it, till he was deprived soon 
after the Restoration. At that auspicious period the 
Islands recovered all their ancient privileges, and 
obtained all the praises and other remunerations, which 
they had so nobly merited by an heroic and unwavering 
loyalty of nearly twenty years, and in the worst of times. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Character of Charles II, in Jersey. — Revolution of 1688. — 
Rising commercial importance of Jersey till 1779. — The 
Prince of Nassau's attempted invasion. — Baron du Rulle- 
cour's invasion in 1781. 

Another era in the history of the Norman Islands is, 
that which commences at the Restoration, and extends 
to the invasion of Jersey by the Baron de Rullecour, 
his defeat, and the fall of the brave and ever to be 
lamented Major Peirson. 

Many traditions of Charles II have remained in 
Jersey, which cannot indeed be a matter of surprise, 
when we consider the affectionate loyalty of the inha- 
bitants towards him, or the Royal favours which he 
conferred upon them. The faults and the vices, which 
have cast so deep a stain on the personal character of 
that monarch, were unknown to our ancestors ; nor 
indeed did they become prominent, till they had been 
investigated by the impartial researches of posterity, 
and become a part of the history of England. 

Notwithstanding their hereditary loyalty, they were 
aware of the invaluable blessings of religious and civil 
liberty, and cheerfully supported the principles of the 
Revolution of 1688, which placed William III. on the 
throne. It was at that period that Mr. Falle, the pa- 
triotic historian of Jersey, first distinguished himself 
as the Deputy of the insular States to the British 
Government. 



6S HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The commercial importance of the Channel Islands 
had already begun to be understood. Charles II. had 
granted the islanders a small duty on spirits for build- 
ing a harbour at St. Helier, till through subsequent 
additions it has grown up to what it is at this moment, 
and enabled the inhabitants to make such a consider- 
able progress in industry, and in the full developement 
of all their local resources. 

The annoyance which the islands occasioned to 
France in time of war, had at length drawn upon them 
the particular attention, and the resentments of that 
formidable power. The ambition of Louis XIV., and 
his interference in favour of the House of Stuart, had 
long before revived all the ancient animosities of Bri- 
tain towards that country. Hence when it became a 
part of her policy to spare no expense in placing the 
JNJorman Islands in a proper state of defence, it was, 
seconded, as of old, by the enthusiastic zeal, and the 
voluntary privations and sacrifices of the inhabitants. 
From the operation of those causes, the islands have 
been rendered almost inexpugnable, or at least, they 
could not be attacked with any rational prospect of suc- 
cess, but by a large naval and military expedition. The 
difficulties under which this places France, contributes 
also to their security ; because that power, would in 
ordinary cases prefer to employ her resources, on ob- 
jects of more immediate importance, rather than expose 
herself to disappointment and defeat in the attempt to 
make an acquisition, the result of which would be so 
extremely uncertain. 

The period that elapsed from the Revolution to 
1779, was spent during peace in rapid internal improve- 
ments., and in a state of great and perpetual alarms , 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 



whenever a war broke out with France. No actual 
attack, however, took place ; the inhabitants grew 
rich, and though their danger was imminent, it made 
them, if possible, but the more attached to their 
country, like those nations, who live contented in the 
land of their fathers, though incessantly menaced by 
the convulsions of nature from the heavings of the 
earthquake, and the eruptions of the volcano. 

A French fleet came to an anchor in St. Ouen's Bay, 
May 1st, 1779) and made a demonstration to land ; but 
soon sailed off, without having accomplished that 
object, or caused any mischief. The reason of their 
sudden departure has never been known ; but it is most 
probable, that when they found the island could not 
be carried by surprise, and that it would have required 
a much larger fleet to succeed, they abandoned their 
project as impracticable, and retired from the coast. 
The enemy did not however lay aside their schemes 
of attacking Jersey, and in less than two years, it was 
followed by the expedition of the Baron de Rullecour. 
This was the last time, and perhaps the most critical 
that the natives of Jersey have had to defend their 
homes ; and hence the name of Peirson seems destined 
to live among them in the greatful recollection of every 
succeeding generation. The best account of that 
invasion was published a few years ago in the " Scenic 
Beauties of Jersey," a collection of lithographic prints, 
by Mr. Philip John Ouless, a native artist, and is 
from the pen of the learned editor of the last edition 
of Falle's History of Jersey, the Rev. Edward Durell, 
a native clergyman, and Rector of the parish of St. 
Saviour. 



CHAPTEK EL 

Protestant Refugees — Effects of British connection — Druidical 
Temples— French Emigrants and Clergy— Fort Regent 
built — The Powder Magazine of Fort Regent nearly blown 
up— Messrs. Lys, Touzel, and Penteney rewarded— Proba- 
bilities of that panic examined. 

We had omitted to mention in the last Chapter, that 
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1680, 
that the islands offered a welcome asylum to the great 
number of French Protestants, who fled from the reli- 
gious persecutions exercised against them in their own 
country. They were a peaceable and industrious race, 
and having been well received in Jersey, they pros- 
pered, so that their descendants have been so totally 
assimilated to ourselves, that they cannot any longer 
be distinguished from the general mass of the popu- 
lation. 

The internal effect of the connection with England 
may be contained in a very short description ; — a large 
naval and military establishment, and fortifications, 
made, altered, pulled down, and then rebuilt, either at 
the times required, or rather as the views of the diffe- 
rent Lieutenant Governors, either disapproved of, or 
recommended, as they were led by their desire of 
novelty, and of being distinguished each from his pre- 
decessor. From these, however, we may except the 
administration of the late General, Sir George Don, 
from 1806 to 1814, who was the first to introduce the 
construction of good roads in Jersey. 



72 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

It has been also a feature of recent times, that the 
inhabitants have ever been most anxious for the pre- 
servation of their immunities and privileges, and have 
always shown themselves particularly zealous of any- 
thing, which might be construed into an encroachment 
or an abridgement of them by the British government. 
The events of 1781, were followed by the peace of 
1783, and a renewal of friendly and commercial rela- 
tions with France. During that interval of peace, Field 
Marshal Conway, the Governor, and the Duke of Rich- 
mond, then at the head of the Board of Ordnance, 
visited the island, and many improvements w T ere 
adopted in consequence of their suggestions. In 1785, 
a large Druidical Temple was found on the Town Hill, 
which now forms the site of Fort Regent. That monu- 
ment w r as soon after presented by the States to Mar- 
shall Conway, who carried it to his seat at Park Place, 
near Henley ; but we shall resume the subject in 
another place. 

A few years afterwards, the French Revolution burst 
out in all its violence, and was soon after followed by 
an obstinate and destructive war, which lasted more 
than 20 years. In 1814, the Duke of Berry, made a 
short stay in this island on his return to France. 

At the time of the death of Louis XVI. in 1793, the 
island was crowded w T ith French emigrants, many of 
whom were persons of high rank and distinction, who 
had found here hospitality and protection from the 
daggers of the midnight assassin, and the lifted axe of 
the mockery of justice. 

It is also to the honour of this island, that the per- 
secuted, and distressed French clergy, were welcomed 
with open arms within its limits. Misfortune allays 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 73 

the venom of religious acrimony, and men are reminded 
that a common nature has imprescriptible claims to 
charity and humanity, which even superstition and 
intolerance cannot destroy. At one time four French 
prelates had made this island their temporary abode ; 
the bishops of Bayeux, Dol, Treguier, and St. Paul de 
Leon. The first of these died here, and like many of his 
exiled countrymen, was buried in St. Saviour's Church- 
yard; but no stone or inscription points out his grave 
to posterity. 

The deportment of that clergy, was mild, inoffensive, 
and pious, such as became their holy profession in a 
state of affliction and suffering. It was then com- 
puted that at one time the French emigrants, and 
clergy, amounted at least to 5,000. 

The last event of a military nature, which has hap- 
pened in Jersey, has been the construction of Fort 
Regent, on the Town Hill, an almost impregnable 
fortress, which at once protects the harbour, and com- 
mands the harbour, and Elizabeth Castle. The Duke 
of Somerset, during the reign of Edward VI., about 
300 years ago, had intended to build a citadel upon 
that hill ; but the design was soon after laid aside as 
impracticable, owing to the actual deficiency of the hill 
in the requisites of spring and well water. The hill, 
which was a common belonging to the Town of St. 
Helier, and on which Fort Regent is now built, was 
sold to Government in 1801, for £10,600, which has 
since been applied towards creating a fund for the 
paving and improvement of the town. That Fort, or 
rather citadel was begun in 1802, and was not com- 
pleted till soon after the peace in 1815. The labour 
and the perseverance, which it required, have been 



74 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

immense, and it has been calculated, that the expen- 
diture, which it occasioned, has not been much under 
a million sterling. 

A fatal catastrophe had nearly happened during the 
building of this Citadel, which if it had not been pre- 
vented, would have involved the town in the same 
destruction. On the 4th of June, 1804, after the guns 
had been fired in honour of the King's birthday, the 
match which had been used for that purpose, and 
which had been apparently extinguished, was carried 
back to the powder magazine, from which it had 
been tat en. The door was then locked up ; but soon 
after this, Lieutenant Lys, who was on duty at the 
signal post, and one Edward Touzel, a carpenter, who 
was then at work, observed some smoke coming 
through the key hole of the powder magazine. These 
two brave men with the assistance of William Pente- 
ney, a private of the 31st Regiment of Foot, who hap- 
pened to be at hand, rushed to the door, and with their 
axes burst it open, while at every instant they ex- 
pected an explosion of the magazine. As soon as 
they came in, they saw the match was on fire, and had 
already consumed part of the outer covering of a 
flannel bag containing a charge of powcjer for a great 
gun. If the match had not been immediately re- 
moved, it would have reached the powder in a few 
seconds, and then the whole of the magazine would 
have inevitably exploded. It is scarcely possible to 
calculate to what an extent the mischief might have 
been carried, if it had not been providentially averted, 
as above 100 barrels of gunpowder were then depo- 
sited in that store. The least that could have hap- 
pened, would have been the demolition of part of the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 75 

town, and the overwhelming of the inhabitants under 
its ruins. Thus did the presence of mind of those 
brave men, preserve the lives and properties of their 
countrymen, though at the imminent peril of their own. 

The sensation which this heroic action excited was 
very great and every individual seemed to vie in grati- 
tude to those persons, who had thus providentially been 
the instruments of such a signal preservation. A large 
subscription was set on foot among the inhabitants for 
Touzel, to which the Lieutenant-Governor, Lieutenant- 
General Andrew Gordon, contributed Five pounds ; but 
whether as an encouragement to others to do the same, 
or as a compensation for any further claims on his 
patronage, is uncertain. Lys, was promoted in his pro- 
fession, and died a Major. Penteney, had a pension 
of Twelve Pounds a-year from the States of Jersey, 
and died at a great age, only a few years ago. Lys, and 
Touzel, in addition to their other rewards, received a 
gratuity of about 300 guineas each, from the States ; 
but the latter did not long enjoy those advantages, 
having died within a few years, in the flower of his age. 

The three actors on that scene, being dead, it is im- 
possible to elucidate after a lapse of forty years, any 
doubts which might now arise. As George III., had 
near completed his 66th year, a royal salute had been 
fired in honour of his birth-day. The question would 
then be, if it was likely, that the match without having 
been well extinguished would be carried back to the pow- 
der magazine. The name also of the individual, who 
locked up the store-room door, has not been recorded, 
nor is it known, what he might have said in his own 
justification. In this state of things might it not be 
questioned whether there had been any real cause for 



76 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

alarm at all, and whether the coming of the smoke 
through the key hole might not have heen imaginary ; 
or lastly, how could the smoke, if any, when smothered 
up in a confined store, and without any draft, have thus 
come out through the key hole ? Even if the match had 
been burning, would it not soon have been extin- 
guished, when it had no vital air to support combustion, 
as in houses on fire, which do not burn very fiercely, 
till the doors have been opened, and given free admission 
to the external air. But admitting that a match should 
be on fire in a store, those precautions are generally 
taken, that it might keep on burning without reaching 
the powder. There must either have been an extra- 
ordinary negligence somewhere, or rather an unac- 
countable panic that seized the parties themselves, 
which made them to apprehend they had incurred a 
danger of the first magnitude. After it had passed 
over, they would still be inclined to persist in their 
belief, that it hadbeen such, either through that general 
feeling of mankind, which causes individuals to think 
highly of their own merits, and to exaggerate the claims 
which may be due to their services. It afforded a 
further facility in doing this, that there were but few 
persons acquainted with the true state of things, and 
that those few were equally interested to increase their 
claims to remuneration by strongly impressing the 
public with a deep sense of the extreme danger to 
which they had been exposed, but which had been so 
happily averted by their intrepidity, and presence of 
mind. If therefore we admit that there was no collu- 
sion, and that the conduct of those persons was as 
meritorious as it has been represented, it cannot be 
denied, that after the favourable issue of that affair, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 77 

the most was made of it to turn it to their private ad- 
vantage, and that the excessive zeal of some persons 
to bias the public mind on that occasion, was not 
undeserving of reprehension. If after all, however, 
the rewards were more than adequate to the ser- 
vices, which had been rendered ; the Acts of the States 
in which they were conveyed, and other documents of 
the kind, are fulsome and ridiculous. 






CHAPTER X. 

Excitement caused by the fear of Martial Law. — Jersey 
Militia. — Character of Lieutenant-General Gordon. — The 
States meet, and are adjourned till next day, a Sunday. — 
The measure is rejected. — State of the public mind. — Gene- 
ral reflections. — Present Prosperity of Jersey. — Visit of 
Queen Victoria. 

The conflagration from which the Town of St. Helier, 
and the shipping in the Harbour, had so narrowly 
escaped, had been preceded the year before in the 
spring of 1803, by a measure, which though it did not 
threaten to be so immediately fatal, was even more to 
be lamented because of its effects, which were mis- 
chievous and permanent. 

That measure is what is commonly called in Jersey 
the " Martial Law," which at that time caused such a 
general sensation throughout the island, that it excited 
open dissensions, and fostered the ranklings of sup- 
pressed animosities, among those, who had made them- 
selves prominent on that occasion. More than forty 
years have elapsed, since that ill-judged transaction : 
but a fair and impartial narrative of it, has not, as I 
apprehend, yet appeared. While an event that has 
caused any strong excitement is recent, it is next to 
impossible to collect the materials for a true and im- 
partial history. The present generation knows but 
little about it, except from hearsay, which the farther 
it recedes from its original date, becomes imperfect, dis- 

H 



80 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

figured, and contradictory. Of the Thirty-six members of 
the States, who voted in that memorable sitting of their 
Assembly, not more than one or two remain, the rest 
with their virtues or imperfections, have found a refuge 
in the peace of the grave. This silent rebuke given to 
the eagerness of human passions and to the vanity of 
all our pursuits, is of itself a motive to impartiality, 
and therefore I shall consider myself in the following 
Sketch, as one who writes about the departed beings 
of another age, who are to be remembered but so far 
as they supply the characters, which are to be de- 
lineated on the great canvass of history. 

Every man in Jersey within the military age is 
obliged to serve in the ranks of the militia. Anciently 
they were trained in independent parochial companies, 
till the reign of Charles II., when all these were 
formed into five regiments of foot. They served without 
any pay, and till about 1780, Government did not even 
supply their clothing. As a privilege for all this, they 
are not liable to any courts-martial ; but all breaches 
of discipline must be referred to, and tried in the 
Royal Court of the Island, many of whose members 
are at the same time distinguished officers in the mi- 
litia. The people are highly jealous, and justly too, 
about the preservation of that privilege. The intro- 
duction of Martial Law among them under any circum- 
stances whatever, was therefore contemplated with 
aversion and alarm. They had before them in other 
countries, the summary rigour, which is inseparable 
from the exercise of Martial Law, and which is seldom 
adopted, except in cases of open disaffection or of an 
actual invasion. It had on that principle been pro- 
claimed in Ireland a few years before ; but at this very 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 81 

time in 1803, when Great Britain, was threatened with 
a most formidable invasion from France, such a mea- 
sure there was not even in contemplation. And why 
should a people, as loyal, and as high-spirited, as that of 
Great Britain, be subjected to so humiliating and unne- 
cessary a coercion ? 

At this period, Lieut.-Generai Andrew Gordon, hap- 
pened to be Lieut.-Governor of Jersey. He had been 
appointed in 1795, and he held the office till his death 
in 1806. He was old, and very infirm, but notwith- 
standing, he was still a skilful and indefatigable officer, 
But those eminent qualities were sullied by many 
faults. His ideas of military discipline were carried 
to an extreme, he was haughty, tyrannical, and over- 
bearing, and of a difficult and uncourteous access ; im- 
patient of contradiction, and still less disposed to listen 
to advice. A man in his high station was naturally 
surrounded by dependents, sycophants, and hungry 
expectants of patronage, whose only prospect of suc- 
cess was to please ; but that could be effected but 
by unconditional submission, and an almost servile ac- 
quiescence. Such was the Commander who deter- 
mined upon subjecting the island to the operation of 
martial law, on the renewal of hostilities with France, 
in 1803, and when Great Britain and its several depen- 
dencies were threatened with a formidable invasion. 
It cannot be doubted that the General's motives were 
upright and well meant ; but the event proved that 
they were ill-judged, unpopular, and uncalled for by 
any particular necessity. 

In this state of affairs, the Lieut.-Governor sum- 
moned the insular States to meet on Saturday, the 11th 
of June, 1803, as if to debate on a subject of the 



$2 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

highest importance to the country. Of the several 
persons who were about his Excellency, it is not known 
that any was honest enough to remonstrate against 
the inexpediency of the intended measure. The States 
met, and the Lieutenant-Governor proposed to them to 
place the island under Martial Law. The members 
though evidently taken by surprise, had still the pre- 
sence of mind to ask for an adjournment to consider 
the matter. As the States were then held with closed 
doors, and the reports of that sitting were not pub- 
lished, it is impossible at this distance of time to affirm 
what was actually urged in the debates, except that 
after much difficulty, the States were adjourned to the 
next day, a Sunday, a thing, unprecedented before, 
never since repeated, and a precipitation which actual 
circumstances did not then require. 

As soon as the Lieutenant-Governor's intentions had 
transpired, a sudden panic, and indignation, spread 
wiih the velocity of the electric spark, through every 
part of the island. The feelings of the population 
were exasperated to the highest pitch, the greatest part 
of whom, crowded the next day into the town of St. 
Helier. As the members approached, they were sur- 
rounded by groups of their Constituents, who asked, 
solicited, prayed, and intreated that they would not 
forsake the cause of their country. An affecting in- 
stance occurred. — The Rev. John La Cloche, a venera- 
ble old man, and Rector of Trinity Parish, was riding 
slowly on, when he was accosted at a small distance 
from St. Helier, by several of his parishioners, some of 
whom affectionately reminded him to reflect on the im- 
portant vote he was about to give, and conjured him 
not to stain by a pussillanimous conduct a long and 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. So 

honourable career. He was moved even unto tears, but 
made no answer, and in a short time voted to support 
the rights of his country. The Royal Square in front 
of the Court House, where the States were held, was 
crowded to excess, and never had there been the excite- 
ment of a more intense anxiety. There was neither 
noise, confusion, nor any tendency to insubordination 
manifested on the occasion. All seemed to wait in 
breathless expectation for the moment, which would 
announce the result of the debates, when all at once 
some of the Constables, threw up the windows, of 
the States' Hall, and waved their hands in exultation 
to the assembled multitude, that the Martial Law 
question had been negatived. There was instantly a 
universal burst of applause, which spread through 
every part of the town. Some of the unpopular mem- 
bers stood for a moment as they came out, as if intimi- 
dated at this manifestation, and as if uncertain how to 
proceed, when some of their political opponents, either 
with a good intention, or in derision at seeing their 
embarrassment, offered to conduct them safely home, 
which was gladly accepted, though perhaps, neither 
outrage, insult, or molestation, were ever intended. 

The question was negatived by twenty-six, out of 
thirty-six, only ten having voted for the Martial Law, 
thus leaving a positive majority of sixteen. — All the 
Constables voted against the law. — The minority was 
composed of four jurats, and of six ecclesiasties, on the 
latter of whom the public odium principally fell. Al- 
though this passed off, without any open tumult, 
it made a permanent impression on the minds of the 
people. The most unwarrantable motives were attri- 
buted to the minority and a general obloquy and con- 



84 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

tempt pursued them to the end of their lives. A whip 
and a halter, as the symbols of the most ignominious 
office were fastened to the gate in front of the Dean's 
parsonage, and some of the other clerical members were 
hung up in effigy, in their own Churchyards. Hence to 
have voted for the Martial Law, was on every occasion 
applied to others, as if to convey a term of the bitterest 
reproach. The States soon after offered a high 
reward to discover the authors of those lawless demon- 
strations, of the public feeling, but without success, 
and ridicule was in the next place, cast on this fruitless 
attempt to avenge the insults heaped upon those out- 
raged members. Those acts, though unjustifiable in 
themselves, afford a striking lesson to men in public 
situations not to swerve from their duty, to court 
the favour of the intriguing or the influential. 

It is usual in Jersey, that whenever a motion has 
been negatived, to make no entry of it in the Books of 
the States, and consequently a very scanty official me- 
morial of that Sunday sitting has been preserved. It 
seemed as if the principal movers of that measure had 
wished to throw a veil over it, and to bury it eventually 
in oblivion. And now that they rest in the grave, well 
might it be forgotten, were it not desirable that a true 
and impartial narrative of what had caused so much 
effervescence in the public mind, at the time, should 
be offered to the present generation. 

Much might indeed be alleged to extenuate that 
popular iirritation. The people had not done anything 
to render them deserving of such an animadversion, nor 
had they like the united Irishmen a few years before 
laid themselves open to the scourge of martial des- 
potism, as the penalty of their rebellion. Their ances- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 85 

tors had repelled the Constable Du Guesclin from the 
walls of Mount Orgueil Castle, and had prevailed over 
the intrigues of Margaret of Anjou, and of the Count 
de Maulevrier. They were of the same stock as that 
of those brave men, who with Sir George De Carteret 
defended their island to the last extremity against the 
invading, and overwhelming forces of Cromwell, and 
there were many still living, who had followed the 
gallaut Major Peirson in the defence of their country, 
when they stood by him, when he closed his short but 
brilliant career by victory, and an honourable death. 
It was therefore extremely unwise and impolitic, to 
have pressed a measure of this kind, when there was 
nothing in actual circumstances, which rendered its 
adoption, necessary, and when it was so offensive to a 
whole population, who were known to be so decidedly 
loyal, and attached to their British connection. 

From 1804 to the present date, the Channel Islands 
have been free from foreign hostilities, and indeed their 
history offers but little of a striking or brilliant local 
nature, notwithstanding which this last period has 
been most rapidly progressive in internal improvements 
and in the arts of peace. The island of Jersey has 
now good roads that intersect it in every quarter, its 
agriculture is nourishing, and the fertility of its soil is 
such, that it yields an abundance of produce, beyond 
what might be expected from its very limited territory. 
St. Helier has now a magnificent harbour, and its 
vessels frequent the marts of every part of the known 
w T orld. 

The Town of St. Helier, which 250 years ago, was 
but a dirty and insignificant sea-port, contains, now 
above 23,000 inhabitants, whose number, have about 
doubled during the last 20 years. The steam-navi- 



86 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

gation increases the facilities of communication with 
England, and encouraged to repair thither, strangers 
who are in quest of health, or of retirement have set- 
tled on its shores. 

Nor let us forget that the English language has be- 
come generally understood among all classes, and that 
St. Helier has assumed the appearance of a new built, 
and nourishing town ; but let us not forget that the 
most prominent feature of this period, has been the 
spread of a religious education indifferently to the man- 
sions of the rich, and to the cottages of the poor, and 
that when England exults in the enlightenment of a 
true faith, the Channel Islands have not overlooked, 
nor neglected the opportunities among them for the 
diffusion of Christian truth. 

It was at this bright period, when the British Empire 
had arrived at its highest degree of prosperity, and as 
a cumulation of our public felicity and exultation that 
Queen Victoria has visited the shores of the Norman 
Islands. The year 1846, will form for our posterity a 
kind of era in the history of our Island, to which they 
will often be proud to recur. It is therefore with that 
highly interesting event, that we shall conclude this 
introductory Historical Sketch, and proceed to the 
other parts of this little work. It is however, proper 
to observe, that Her Majesty's Visit, is yet so recent, 
and so fully imprinted on the memories of most of our 
countrymen, that any further allusion to it, would be 
premature on our part, and that it has already been 
amply described by many able hands ; though if we were 
to express an opinion, we would recommend the Ac- 
count which accompanies Ouless' Eoyal Album for 
which it was compiled, and the work itself dedicated 
by permission, to the Queen. 



THE PICTORIAL GUIDE TO JERSEY. 



CHAPTEE I. 

First appearance of Jersey from the Sea. — Sea View of the 
scenery from St. Aubin's Bay. — The Sands, Elizabeth 
Castle, and the Hermitage. — Ouless's Scenic Beauties. — 
Panoramic View of the Bay. — Town, and Harbour of 
St. Helier. — Fort Regent. — Coming into the Pier. — Affect- 
ing and striking objects on Landing. — Market Day. — Sab- 
bath. 

It was ten o'clock in the morning in the early part of 
the month of May. The weather was calm and serene, 
and not a cloud obscured the bright, and expanded 
azure of the heavens, till it was lost in the distant 
horizon, when the steamer, which had left Southampton, 
the evening before, had just turned round Noirmont 
Point, and was rapidly approaching with a fair breeze, 
the harbour and town of St. Helier. During the night, 
the wind had been contrary, and the water had been 
rather boisterous, which had then excited a sense of 
uncomfortableness, and even some sickness among 
many of the passengers. But now the diminished 
motion of the vessel, and the beautiful scenes that rose 
almost every moment successively in view, had banished 
every uneasy sensation, so that every one seemed 
anxiously disposed to enjoy the glowing prospects, 
which presented themselves in all that variety and 
profusion. 



88 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

All seemed to have recovered from their late listless- 
ness, and to be crowding- upon deck, either to pace it 
up and down, or to sit in silent gaze and admiration of 
the many objects that rose on the different points of 
the neigbouring coast. The sight was lovely in the 
extreme. The smooth water was gleaming with the 
beams of the sun, that like infinite millions of sparks 
were reflected from the surface. Rising above the 
adjacent sea, there appeared a line of high land, which 
displayed all the appearances of wealth and fertility. 
The fields were intermixed with groves and orchards, 
and the whole extent was thickly set with elegant 
mansions, and here and there, with farm-houses, or 
with small clusters of the humble, but not less interest- 
ing cottages of the poor. The tide had ebbed, and left 
dry a large extent of sand between the water and the 
land. The classical and the philosophical mind could 
not help being forcibly struck with the illusion, which 
brought back to recollection the arenas and the gla- 
diatorial shows of antiquity. The passengers could 
indeed see crowds of human beings moving along 
those roads, but unlike to the sanguinary pastimes of 
ancient Rome, it was a quiet population moving in the 
avocations of useful labour, or in the pursuits of inno- 
cent recreation. Add to this that the morning air was 
bracing and refreshing, and that many imagined 
(though perhaps it was after all nothing more than a 
delusion, that frequent odours from the land were 
wafted to them over the waters, and that before they 
landed, they had already a had foretaste of the delights 
of this fairy land. 

These are the sensations which have been excited 
not only in a few casual visitors, but in thousands on 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 89 

their first approach to the coast of Jersey. This inte- 
resting sea view must not however be understood to 
apply indiscriminately to every other part of the 
coast, though in general all its bold, rocky, or low 
sandy shores, have each their own particular beauties. 
The sea view to which we are now exciting the atten- 
tion of the reader is that which presents itself to the 
stranger in a grand panoramic view of St. Aubin's 
Bay, in a deep recess of which lies the town of St, 
Helier. This view is said to bear a striking resem- 
blance to that in the bay of Naples, This latter may 
indeed be larger, and bring to the mind of the be- 
holder a greater number of classical recollections. But 
if St. Aubin's Bay does not recall to remembrance the 
transactions of so many ages, neither were its precincts 
ever polluted with so many crimes. The mind that 
would turn aside with abhorrence at the thoughts of 
the isle of Capri and the solitary haunts of Tiberius, 
would dwell with pleasure on the bye-gone times of 
the small Isle of St. Helier, and on the adjoining rock 
of the Hermitage, once the scene of the penances and 
of the martyrdom of that holy man. The beauty of 
the landscape which surrounds our bay more than 
compensates, for the want of the cloudless blue sky of 
an Italian climate. Or if our shores do not present 
the tombs of such eminent poets as Virgil or Sanna- 
zaro, the fortress of Elizabeth Castle, which commands 
St. Aubin's Bay, was once the residence of Lord Cla- 
rendon, where he wrote a large part of his history, 
and where the poet Cowley found a refuge from per- 
secution. If the recollections of Elizabeth Castle, do 
not run over a long period, at least they are pure and 
unstained. It was there that Charles II. found twice 



90 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

an asylum, and it was there also that Sir George De 
Carteret with a handful of the loyal inhabitants de- 
fended himself till the last extremity, and that it had 
the glory of being the last Royalist fortress that sur- 
rendered to Cromwell. 

While the appearance of the sea and land was occa- 
sioning those pleasing reflections, a passenger who had 
purchased a copy of Ouless's ScenicBeauties of Jersey 
at Southampton, amused himself, and a few of his 
fellow voyagers with turning over the lithographic 
prints in that collection. Some of the originals ap- 
peared one after another, as the steamer advanced into 
the Bay. Our little party felt highly delighted in 
tracing the resemblance of the lithography of Noir- 
mont Point to its bleak and unpromising original. 
The eye was however soon after refreshed by the neat 
little town of St. Aubin, with its fort and harbour, the 
sea view of which was immensely improved by the 
delicious scenery of the contiguous amphitheatre of 
hills. A few minutes more brought the steamer off 
the southern or back walls of Elizabeth Castle. The 
eye had scarcely time to gaze on the external appear- 
ance of that fortress, when the vessel was as it were 
by a sudden enchantment transported into what is 
called the small road. It is to this part that the chief 
of Mr. Ouless' views relates, which is particularly re- 
markable for its striking likeness to the beautiful origi- 
nals. While we were thus amusing ourselves with the 
work of the artist, and doing ample justice to his taste 
and reflection, one of the passengers informed us with 
an air of conscious satisfaction, that Mr. Ouless was a 
native of Jersey, that the work with its illustrations 
was an honour to the countrv, and that the States of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 91 

the island had so thought, who had voted him a hand- 
some gratuity.— An English passenger said with an 
arch smile that the love of country is never so attractive, 
as when it speaks the truth. 

The panoramic view, which now presented itself was 
not very extensive, but it was enchanting in the ex- 
treme. On the west, as if to command the Bay, rose 
on a ledge of rocks, a little above the water, Elizabeth 
Castle, with all its appendages of walls, batteries, bas- 
tions, ramparts, gates, bridges, and towers, which 
proudly shewed, that it possessed ample means of de- 
fence, or of enforcing submission. But in a time of 
peace those defences were uncalled for, and the mind 
was better pleased to refer to its ancient history, and 
to elucidate the events of its early existence, when its 
precincts were yet the abode of a few scattered fisher- 
men, or when it became subsequently the habitation of 
religious men, whose profession was to devote them- 
selves to prayer, and to the practice of charity towards 
their fellow creatures. 

The neat object that presents itself, is the Hermitage, 
at a few hundred yards distance from the Castle, from 
which it is separated at high water. The hermits' cell, 
which has survived the lapse of so many ages, and the 
desolating improvements of the. scientific engineer, 
rises modestly a few feet above the top of the rock. 
It is a place still held high in the estimation of the in- 
habitants, from the tradition that almost a thousand 
years ago, it was the site of the seclusion of the holy 
man Helier, who suffered martyrdom for the Christian 
faith, and whose name has since been given to the 
flourishing town on the adjoining coast. 

At the bottom of the Bay, and in front of the Castle, 



92 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and the small road, a large number of Buildings, on a 
level with the water line a low sandy shore. This is 
the town of St. Helier, at whose extremity, and under 
the shelter of a projecting hill, a magnificent harbour 
has been constructed. This cannot fail to arrest imme- 
diately the attention of the stranger. Never did nature 
offer fewer facilities for a port, and never did art more 
completely triumph over the disadvantages of nature. 
The harbour of St. Helier did not exist before the reign 
of Charles II., and it seemed to be then more than pro- 
blematical, whether it would ever be possible to form 
one there. Since that time it has been gradually 
formed, till by progressive improvements and accessions, 
its extensive piers inclose an ample space to ac- 
commodate a large quantity of shipping, which now 
assign it a rank among the principal sea-ports of the 
United Kingdom. — But we shall resume the subject in 
another part of this publication. 

The prospect, from this place, as observed before, is 
not very extensive. On the East, and rising immedi- 
ately above the harbour, is the Town Hill, now Fort 
Regent, a citadel commanding the town, the harbour, 
and the neighbouring parts of the bay. The hill is 
isolated, or is rather connected by some slightly rising 
ground to a ridge of. hills, which assuming a circular 
direction, incline to the westward, and after forming a 
semicircle terminate on the low sand beach, which faces ' 
the main entrance into Elizabeth Castle. The most 
western of those hills, and which bounds the town on 
that side, is of ill omened celebrity, and from time im- 
memorial has been used as the ordinary place of exe- 
cution ; but its barren and unpromising surface has been 
inclosed of late years, and is now much improved by 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 93 

cultivation. The line which connects the two extremi- 
ties of these hills, forms the low shore on which the 
town of St. Helier has since been built, and seems to 
have been originally but a beach of low sand hills, 
or an insalubrious marsh. Judging from the antiqui- 
ties that were discovered on the Town Hill about sixty 
years ago, it" must have been a highly sacred place, and 
much frequented by the Druids, — How strangely are 
things now diverted from their primitive uses ! The 
Druids on the Town Hill have vanished to make room 
for a citadel, no vestiges of the ancient Abbey of St. 
Helier, are now to be found in the comparatively 
modern site of Elizabeth Castle : the very rock on 
which the little Hermitage stands has often been 
threatened to be levelled, that it might not interfere 
with the defences of its powerful neighbour, the 
swamp, and the naked sand hills have been replaced 
by an elegant and healthy town, and lastly that ill- 
omened hill, has now the most frequented road of com- 
munication with the western parishes of the island, 
made to run along the sides of its declivity ! 

In the mean time the steamer seemed to have glided 
into a smooth lake, surrounded on three of its sides by 
Elizabeth Castle, by Fort Regent, and by the town of 
St. Helier. It was now close to the entrance into the 
harbour, within which a large number of vessels lay at 
anchor, whose masts rose like a forest above the level 
of the piers, which projected far out to sea, to increase 
the capaciousness of the port, and to afford the oppor- 
tunity of a good depth of water at full tide. For the 
conveniency of landing the passengers, she was run in 
alongside of the North Pier, when in a moment she 
was surrounded by boats, sweeping with their oars on 



94 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the surface to land those passengers, who on their side 
were not less eager to depart. It was all haste, and 
almost confusion on deck, for every one looked up and 
down to ascertain that all was right, so that no part of 
the luggage might be mislaid through carelessness, or 
unintentionally left behind. On looking upwards, one 
could see the border of the contiguous North Pier lined 
by a numerous assemblage of spectators. The first 
thing that struck the voyagers, was that those specta- 
tors, had all of them, a decent and respectable appear- 
ance, and not at all inferior to those that one might 
meet with in an English sea port town, and easily 
imagined that he was either landing at Plymouth or 
at Southampton. Some of them had undoubtedly come 
there for a morning walk, and with no other motive 
than a little curiosity to see the passengers land, and 
to hear the news ; but many also had repaired thither, 
for the more laudable purpose of welcoming their long 
absent friends, who after escaping from various dan- 
gers, or having caused all the apprehensions, which 
are always the consequence of any protracted separa- 
tion, were now safely restored to their homes. It was 
truly interesting to behold the several recognitions, 
which then actually took place. Many were the nods, 
the waving of hands, and the salutations that were 
interchanged from the deck of the steamer to the edge 
of the pier, as the various individuals endeavoured to 
attract the attention of those, who on their part were 
looking for them with an equal degree of anxiety. 
There were however, many on board, who were recog- 
nised by the by-standers, with whom they were uncon- 
nected ; but as their arrival or not, was a matter of 
indifference, so did it lead to no consequences. But 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 95 

as it was not so in every case, so was there one, which 
was very striking. It was that of an old weather- 
beaten captain in the merchant service, who after 
having been exposed to dangers in almost every part 
of the world, had safely brought back his vessel into 
the port of London, and was now on his way home to 
meet the embraces of his wife and children. For five 
successive packets his wife had come to see the landing 
of the passengers, and had been disappointed. She 
had not however been discouraged, and had come there 
again. She was a motherly kind of a woman, and of 
the middling class, and was accompanied by her sons, 
two fine comely lads. It was not long before she 
recognised her husband pacing the deck, and intensely 
surveying the long fine of spectators,who were standing 
on the pier. 

A few minutes, more had scarcely elapsed, when 
these good people were seen forming a little group 
quite by themselves, and so totally absorbed by their 
own feelings, that they seemed to be unconscious of 
what was going on in the surrounding crowd. As to 
myself I could have envied the delicious sensations 
which were then enjoyed by that virtuous family. It is 
indeed in the middling and in the humble classes of life, 
that so much happiness and sincerity is principally to 
be found. Such a welcome meeting had more of 
both, than is ever contained in the boasted interviews 
of Kings and Princes, whom their fears or their in- 
terest bring together under the semblance of hollow 
friendship, or of dissembled reconciliation. It was 
in fact a kind of domestic triumph for that good 
woman to lean again upon her husband's arm, and 
to lead him back in the company of their mutuaL 



96 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

offspring, after so long an absence, and after so many 
dangers in safety to their humble habitation. Such 
a triumph as this, is one of the highest endearments 
of domestic life, and affords a far more real satisfaction, 
than ever fell to the lot of any of the conquerors of 
antiquity, when they descended from their triumphal 
car amid the deafening acclamations of congregated 
thousands. 

The scenes that now presented themselves to the 
passengers were indeed novel to many of them ; but 
they had not that novelty, which is commonly felt on 
landing in a foreign country. It was pleasing to an 
Englishman to observe, that the features, the manners, 
and the costume of the people were the same as in 
England. The language itself of the by-standers, that 
great mark of national distinction was English, with 
the exception of a few stragglers of the lower orders, 
who addressed each other in the old Norman French 
of the Island. 

A large supply of porters was in attendance for the 
conveyance of the luggage of the passengers. One 
was struck with the civility and regularity of that sort 
of gentry, who are so imposing and disorderly in other 
places. The good order so remarkable here is owing 
to some excellent regulations of the insular States, and 
to the indefatigable exertions of Captain Chevalier the 
present harbour-master to carry them into effect. 

Cards were then liberally slipped into the hands of 
the passengers by different persons connected with the 
hotels and other places of accommodation for travellers. 
As we had been recommended in London to a respect- 
able boarding house, we saw no reason to alter our 
choice. Several carriages were in readiness at a few 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JEPwSEY. 97 

yards distance from the landing place, where having 
hired one for ourselves and our luggage, we got in, and 
ordered the driver where to set us down. From the 
end of the North Pier, it was nearly half a mile to our 
lodgings, in the town of which we saw but little during 
our drive. We were received at our new lodgings with 
all that attention and cordiality, which nobody knows 
to practise better than the keeper of an English hotel. 
The house faces the Market, in Halkett Place, a 
name which it derives from a former Lieut.-Governor, 
the brave, and the generous minded Sir Colin Halkett. 
As it was on a Saturday the street, and the market, 
were crowded to excess ; much the same, as is the case 
in an English country town, when a fair happens to 
be held. The country people in Jersev, whether for 
business or pleasure, generally repair to St. Helier, on 
a Saturday, either to transact business, as in the most 
central part of the island, or where people may meet 
with each other, without being at the trouble of going 
to each others' houses. 

It was not long before the travellers, who were 
amused with surveying this noisy and bustling scene 
were summoned to attend a comfortable and plentiful 
" dejeuner a la fourchette" which our more thrifty an- 
cestors would have called a most substantial dinner. 
Be that however as it may, there was a profusion of 
all the good things which the island could afford. 
After having laid such sure foundation, every former 
sensation of fatigue and exhaustion disappeared, and 
every one, who had either been sick or uneasy on the 
passage, was now revived with a general flow of spirits. 
They had left London but so very few hours before, 
that they could scarcely believe their senses, how they 



y» HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 

could have been wafted over so soon to such a distance. 
The delusion was further kept up by the general ap- 
pearance of the people, by the style of the buildings, 
by the cleanliness of the wide street in front, and by 
the comforts of the houses, which were evidently the 
same as are found everywhere in England. 

As the day was already far advanced, it was not 
worth while to have undertaken any long excursion ; 
but as the house was provided with an abundant 
supply of the local papers, which are published here 
in the English and French languages, they afforded 
ample amusement to the voyagers for some hours. It 
was not till the evening, that they sallied out for a 
ramble into some of the principal streets. The party 
consisted of persons who were all religiously inclined, 
and who were delighted to be informed that the Sab- 
bath was kept here with as much holiness as in Eng- 
land. Under the impression of those feelings, they 
fully resolved to spend the next day, which was Sun- 
day, either at their lodgings, in private devotion, or to 
go out to attend at some place of public worship. But 
as Elizabeth Castle, Fort Regent, and the Harbour of 
St. Helier, had already particularly attracted their 
attention during the latter part of the passage, it was 
agreed that a visit should be made to them on the 
Monday following. In the meantime they procured 
themselves the best Guide books and other publications 
of merit, which could furnish them with any necessary 
information. 



CHAPTER II. 

Visit to the Harbour of St. Helier. — Its improvements since 
1841. — Construction of a Wet Dock. — Prospects of the 
shipowners. — Appearance and general utility of the Har- 
bour. — Its historical origin. — Its present importance. — 
Difficulty of access. — Extract from Dessiou's Channel Pilot. 

In the forenoon of the next Monday, our travellers 
made a small excursion to visit the harbour of St. 
Helier. They had just been reading Ouless' explana- 
tions of his panoramic View of that harbour, and of 
the contiguous scenes, which they soon afterwards 
recognised on actual inspection to be correct. 

The travellers were however informed, that very 
great improvements had lately taken place, and that 
a new South Pier, which had been ordered to be built 
by the insular States, was but just finished. This had 
been projected to render the port more capacious, and 
to give it a greater depth of water, or rather, as it is a 
tide harbour, that it might enable vessels to come in at 
an earlier part of the tide. This has been accomplish- 
ed by running out farther to sea, a massy wall of 
granite constructed on scientific principles. The first 
stone of it was laid with great ceremony by the Lieute- 
nant-Governor, the late Sir Edward Gibbs, accom- 
panied by the insular States, who followed in procession 
with a large portion of the native population of the 
island, as well as of the British residents. This hap- 
pened on the 29th of September, 1841. The expendi- 



L.cf CI. 



100 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

ture has been very great when compared with the limited 
resources of the country. The funds were mostly 
raised by loan, secured on the produce of a small duty 
raised on spirits for home consumption, and on the 
harbour dues, which have become very considerable. 
These two sources of revenue are now estimated at 
more than £5,000 a-year each. Enormous as the 
debt incurred comparatively appears, those resources 
are sufficiently ample, to promise a gradual extinction, 
if properly administered. As to the work itself, it is 
not possible for us to pronounce any decided opinion. 
Whether the increase of wealth, and general prosperity 
of Jersey will be commensurate with the sanguine 
expectations of the projectors, time alone, will show. 
Many persons are not without their apprehensions, 
that the commercial prosperity of the island, has 
already passed its acme, and that an increase of ship- 
ping, is but an increase of competition. The tonnage 
of every other part of the empire has also proportion- 
ally increased, and we have now to encounter the 
activity of rivals, which had never yet existed. The 
trade of the island formerly found employment for its 
own shipping, or in other words, the Jersey shipowner 
and the merchant were united in the same person ; 
but now since the Jersey shipping has exceded the de- 
mand for the freights required for its own trade, the 
owners have lost their independence, and been com- 
pelled to look out for the employment of their vessels 
among strangers, and in other ports, whence have 
resulted many very serious losses, and other very 
grievous disappointments of some. If we are to trust 
some of the knowing ones, notwithstanding the har- 
bour is nourishing and thronged with shipping, the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 101 

gains of the shipowners have been diminishing for some 
years, and are now in the way of still further reduction. 

The States had obtained an Order of Council, to 
enable them to construct a Wet Dock, at the upper 
end of the harbour, and along the line of quays, which 
runs parallel to the road called the Commercial Build- 
ings. The spot had been carefully chosen, and inde- 
pendently of the public utility of a Wet Dock, it would 
have caused an immense improvement in the value of 
all the property in its immediate vicinity. It has 
however very unexpectedly happened that just as the 
excavation of the dock was going to be carried into 
effect, that a new plan has been brought forward, re- 
commending to form that dock at the south end of the 
North Pier, but outside of it, and to be more capacious 
than the one, whose plan had been officially adopted. 
The new place therefore immediately became popular, 
and it is not unlikely that there is a large majority in 
its favour. The other party alleged the difficulty of 
retrograding after having obtained an Order of Coun- 
cil to sanction an Act of the States ; but the unyield- 
ing pertinacity of men's opinions, and the silent, but 
sternly disavowed workings of selfishness are more 
difficult to be overcome, than to obtain the repeal or 
the modification of an Order of Council. 

The delay which has thus been incurred has given 
rise to further inquiry, so that from the turn that mat- 
ters have taken, the question now to be decided seems 
to be whether it would be prudent to have a Wet Dock 
at all. The expense, it is estimated, would amount to 
above £200,000, and in that case, it may next be asked, 
whether it would not be highly rash and improvident 
to mortgage the revenue of the country to such an 



102 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

extent. It is true that a grant of Charles II., has ap- 
propriated that revenue towards the building of a Har- 
bour ; but it is evidently a mistaken policy to give so 
much to one particular object, however important it 
may be, and to suffer so many other improvements al- 
most of an equal importance to be totally neglected. 

If it should be asked what have the States done to 
improve or to decorate the country, what architectural 
monuments, they have reared, what churches have they 
built, what colleges have they founded, or what literary 
institutions have they fostered, the answer must be 
that of expressive silence, or it must be mixed with the 
bitter sarcasm, that they have done as little in any of 
those respects as any of their predecessors ever did in 
the darkest times of ignorance and poverty. It is true 
however that Jersey has within the last 50 years been 
astonishingly improved ; but this in almost every in- 
stance has been effected by public subscription, or at 
the expense of public spirited, or even of privately 
interested individuals. Of course this observation 
does not apply to the sums, which the States have sus- 
pended on roads, and on other works of a similar 
nature, which might be, more or less connected with 
the defence of the island. 

This cursory view of the matter is suggested by an 
inspection of the harbour, and by the recollections of 
its history. Before this little work can be published, 
these very thoughts may have lost all their novelty 
and importance by a final decision, about which of the 
two plans is the more eligible. Be that decision how- 
ever what it may, let us hope that whatever may be 
done, it will be for the advantage of the country, and 
that good sense, calm reflection, and a total absence of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 103 

party feelings on the one hand, and of selfishness on 
the other, will mark the final determination. 

But though objections may be raised, and though 
vast sums of money may have been frequently squan- 
dered on this, as well as on some of the smaller har- 
bours in Jersey, it must be owned that even that im- 
providence has not been without some advantages, 
were it only for the encouragement, which that ex- 
penditure gave to the working classes, and for that 
general spirit of enterprize, and of progressive improve- 
ments, which it kept alive. 

The appearance of the harbour is highly pleasing and 
interesting to a stranger, for every part of it displays 
a degree of bustle, industry, and animation, which was 
never surpassed in any part of Great Britain. At 
a period like the present one, when navigation was 
making such rapid strides in England, it was but right 
that this small island should also have her share in the 
general race of improvement, and that when our neigh- 
bours and rivals at Granville, and at St. Malo, are 
doing so much to ameliorate their ports, we might also 
not be inferior to them in that respect. 

The harbour of St. Helier, is likewise to be consi- 
dered as the greatest artificial curiosity in the island. 
Nature seemed to have formed insurmountable obsta- 
cles to its creation, and where 150 years ago, there 
was scarcely a sheltering creek for fishing boats, there 
is now a crowded forest of masts, floating at high 
water in a magnificent bason. But what difficulties 
will not human industry and perseverance surmount ! 
A deep and capacious harbour has at length been 
created out of the resources of Jersey herself, and 
without the aid of a single shilling from the British 



104 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Government. It is to her harbour that Jersey is in- 
debted for her present commercial wealth, and for the 
developement of the agricultural resources of her fer- 
tile soil. It is to this that we must trace the cause, 
which at this moment renders her the most thriving, 
the most commercial, and the most important of the 
Channel Islands. 

This state of things has tended to increase a happy 
and enterprising population, which in its turn supplies 
a surplus of individuals, who crowd for employment in 
the merchant service. It is thus that the port becomes 
a nursery of seamen, to carry on the peaceful purposes 
of navigation, to the most distant regions of the earth, 
or to train a large proportion of the brave men, who 
might be wanted for the protection of the empire in 
time of war. 

It is another consequence resulting from the great 
number of Jersey shipping, that many of those vessels 
now resort to the most distant ports, and that places 
which were formerly but barely known to the scientific 
geographer, figure frequently in Lloyd's List with the 
arrivals and departures of vessels belonging to this 
little island. — Add to this that a great number of 
vessels are also built in Jersey. 

It has finally resulted from the operation of all those 
causes, that the port of St. Helier in its aggrandised 
state, is said to be now the " sixth" for tonnage and 
importance in the British dominions. This is indeed 
a singular distinction to have been acquired by the 
industry and the good fortune of a little island, only a 
few square leagues in extent, and of which it may in- 
deed be proud, since it makes it vie with the most 
striking efforts, and the eventual success of any mari- 
time place, either in ancient or in modern times. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 105 

Great as are the advantages of this port, and ad- 
mirably calculated for the commerce of its nourishing 
town, it must be acknowledged that it is of difficult 
access, that the coasts of Jersey are rocky and dan- 
gerous, that the route from England to St. Helier, is 
circuitous, and that the latter cannot be approached, but 
with the greatest precaution. Some other stations, as 
Bouley Bay, on the North Coast, offer many local 
capabilities, and a shorter and easier communication 
with England. But the central position, as well as 
the beauty and the fertility of the adjoining district, 
evidently influenced the choice of having the town and 
the port at St. Helier. 

As many of our readers may not be acquainted with 
the coast of Jersey, or have no books on the subject 
at hand, we close this chapter with the following 
Extract from Dessiou's Channel Pilot. [London, 
1805, page 72.] 

This extract will supply an excellent explanation of 
Captain Martin White's, R.N., Chart of Jersey. 

" Jersey is 3 leagues in length, from east to west, and 5 
miles in breadth. Its N. W. point lies S. E.| S. from St. 
Martin's Point, in Guernsey, about 5 leagues ; its S. W. 
point 11 leagues N. by W. § W. from St. Malo ; and from 
the coast of Normandy, from 3 to 4 leagues. This island 
is surrounded with rocks, which render the access both 
difficult and dangerous. 

" St. Helier is the principal town in Jersey ; it is si- 
tuated in the Bay of St. Aubin, almost in the middle of the 
southern side, and has the best road in the whole island, 
but yet dangerous on account of the numerous rocks scat- 
tered round the entrance. The town and bay are defended 
by several batteries, but chiefly by Castle Elizabeth, built 
in the bay, on a large rock, to which you may go at low 
water. With northerly winds, you may anchor about a 



106 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

league without this bay, in 15 and 20 fathoms, clear of 
any danger from the rocks. 

" The west side of Jersey forms another large bay, 
called St. Owen's Bay, wherein large vessels may anchor, 
in 12 and 15 fathoms of water, sheltered from easterly 
winds. Westward of this bay, about 1~ league, is a bank, 
called the Great Bank, extending 4 or 5 miles N. W. and 
S. E. where you may anchor in 12 fathoms. 

" On the eastern part, is the Bay of St. Catherine, where 
the anchorage and the hold are good. St. Clement's 
Point, (the S. E. point of the island) is to the south of this 
road, and must not be approached nearer than a league, 
because of a ledge of rocks, called Banc de Violet, which 
runs from it towards the S. E 

" The tides set very strong among the rocks, and run the 
whole circuit of the compass in 12 hours. 

" The two most remarkable ledges of rocks, on the north 
side of Jersey, are the Pater-nosters, and the Ecreho 
Kocks ; the first lie about 2f miles off the N. W. point, 
and stretch near a league east and west. The others are 
6 miles from the N. E. point, extending W. by N. and S. 
S.E. between 2 and 3 leagues. Both the ledges consist 
of a multitude of rocks, several of which are above water. 

" To the south of Jersey, between 3 and 4 leagues S. by 
W. from St. Clement's Point, and about 6 N. by E. from 
Cape Frehel in Britany, are the Minquiers, a chain of 
rocks, 3 full leagues in length, E. N. E. and W.N. W. 
and above a league in breadth. They are very dangerous, 
for the stream sets right across them, from the west. 
The greatest part of these rocks are under water ; those 
which shew themselves are called Les Maisons. The 
westernmost of the Minquiers, called La Deree, are 
always above water, and appear detached from the rest. 

" Between 2 and 3 leagues from St. Clement's Point, 
S. by W. lies the Bank Grelets, about 4 miles E.N. E. 
and W. N. W. and 2 miles broad, which are very dan- 
gerous. 

" The tide, between the Islands of Guernsey and the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 107 

Caskets, sets on every point of the compass in 12 hours, 
{i.e.) on the full and change days, it sets, at half-past one 
o'clock, S. E. ; at three, East ; at half-past four, N. E. ; 
at six o'clock, North; at half-past seven, N. W. ; nine 
o'clock, West ; at half-past ten S. W. ; and at twelve, 
South." 



CHAPTEE in. 

Extent of Elizabeth Castle. — A general Description of it. — 
Charles II. — Lord Clarendon's History. — Two Wards. — 
The Castle commanded by the Town Hill. — The Armoury. 
— Probabilities that the Islet of St. Helier was once dis- 
rupted from the main island. — Abbey of St. Helier. — 
Empress Maud, and Abbey of Cherbourg. — Union of the two 
Abbeys. — Abbey of St. Helier, becomes a Priory. — Alien 
Priories. — Filial destruction of the Priory of St. Helier. 

The next morning as the weather continued to be fine, 
our travellers left their lodgings to visit Elizabeth Cas- 
tle, the Hermitage, and Fort Regent. The road to 
the two former places lies over a wide ridge of shingle, 
which has been formed by the opposing tides, and is 
called the Bridge. It is about a quarter of a mile long, 
and leaves the communication open from the Castle, 
to the main land at half-tide, twice in 24 hours. It is 
a place that ranks high in the military annals of Jer- 
sey, and is still of much importance from its having 
the command of the bay, and because no invader, could 
approach the harbour and town of St. Helier without 
having first passed within the range of its guns. 

The site of the Castle is of high antiquity, and is 
further remarkable for the various mutations it has 
experienced, about which we shall give a few parti- 
culars in their proper places. 

Mount Orgueil Castle at the East end of the island, 
had been for ages deemed impregnable, and indeed it 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 109 

was so, while the art of attacking fortified places was 
yet in its infancy ; but as it is commanded by a lofty 
hill, which nearly joins it, it soon became evident, that 
it could not be defended against a regular battering 
train. At length it was surveyed by some professional 
engineers during the reign of Elizabeth, who made a 
report to her, of its utter uselessness, as a place of de- 
fence. This happened in 1586, and from that date 
Mount Orgueil Castle was suffered to decay, till it 
has become little more than a gigantic pile of ruins, 
which is still deeply interesting by the recollections 
of its fallen greatness, and of the hostile bands, who 
were so often repulsed from its walls. 

In consequence of that survey it was then necessary 
to look out for some more efficient means of defence 
by the construction of another castle, which might be 
sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of an invader. 
The small and then deserted island of the Priory of 
St. Helier in St. Aubin's Bay was soon selected for 
that purpose, and measures taken by the Queen's Or- 
ders to carry it into effect. The building of the new 
Castle was soon commenced, and very properly received 
the name of its Royal Foundress : but as it was built 
progressively and in detached parts, and though it stood 
an obstinate siege in 1651, it was notcompletely finished 
till the reign of Charles II, in 1670. During all these 
progressive changes the ruins of the Abbey of St. 
Helier have so totally vanished, that not the slightest 
vestige of them has descended to our times. 

The principal entrance into this Castle is at the 
North end. The inclosure is a large one, as the walls 
surround the whole of the small island, which is about 
a mile in circumference. It would be superfluous to 



HO HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 

give any detailed description of the several batteries, 
or of the various spots, which have been particularly 
fortified to prevent the approach of an enemy. That 
might indeed claim the attention of the professional 
engineer, but could afford no entertainment to the 
general reader. The main guard stands on a rock, 
which rises singly within the castle, and though it is 
not very elevated, it commands a view r of the whole of 
the place, and of the adjoining sea. 

The castle has several barracks, stores, and other 
necessary buildings, but as these have the appearance 
of private houses, it might be easily mistaken for a 
small English town. In time of peace a very small 
garrison is thought sufficient for its protection. The 
interest of the place is diminished, from the spot being 
unknown, w T hich Charles II. and his brother James 
inhabited during their temporary residence within the 
fortress. It is probable however that it was in some 
one of those houses which were since pulled down to 
make room for the present barracks. The spot also 
where Clarendon wrote his history cannot now be 
recognised ; but could it be found, it would be more 
hallowed in the recollections of posterity, than because 
the exiled monarch had once resided there. Charles 
found indeed an asylum in Jersey in his distress, and 
he became in better times the benefactor of its loyal 
population. It is not therefore surprising if his name 
has been cherished with enthusiasm by an ardent and 
grateful people. It is here indeed that tradition has 
handed him to successive generations, as if he had 
been a hero, or a patriot king. The stains with which 
his character is tarnished in English history are un- 
known here, and though the memories of princes after 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. Ill 

they have once departed from the scenes of human 
existence, become the property of history, and are 
treated with indifference, and even with acrimony, the 
gratitude of Jersey forms a pleasing exception in the 
case of Char]es II. 

The Castle consists of two wards, of which the upper 
one was built by Queen Elizabeth, and has received 
the name of that Princess ; the lower ward is that of 
Charles I, and was erected in the early part of his reign, 
and Charles' Fort was added by Sir George Carteret 
during the Civil Wars. The Green, as it is now called, 
was taken into the inclosure some years after the Res- 
toration, in 1670, and completed the walling-in of the 
whole of the island of St. Helier. It is not a regular 
fortification in the strict sense of the word, as the walls, 
which form the inclosure, have been obliged to follow 
the curves and the projections of the ground, to prevent 
the possibility of an enemy being ever able to form a 
lodgment near the walls. The nearest land from which 
the walls could be attacked, was on the Town Hill at 
the distance of almost a mile, where batteries might be 
erected. But even if a practicable breach should be ef- 
fected,the assailants could not attempt it but at half-tide, 
after a march of nearly a mile over the wet sands, and 
havingbeen exposed to the fire of the Castle. If however 
they should find a protracted resistance, they would be 
forced, in a few hours, to retreat, or else they would be 
overwhelmed by the return of the Tide. — Thus far, 
one might imagine that the Castle was impregnable, 
which is not the fact, for it is so completely commanded 
by the Town Hill and Gallows' Hill, that it could not 
be tenable against the fire of an enemy, who had en- 
trenched himself upon those hills. 



112 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The importance of the Town Hill, was already felt 
during the siege in 1651, from the circumstance that 
the Parliamentarians had erected a battery upon it, 
from which they cannonaded the Castle for some time ; 
but without effect, perhaps owing to want of skill, and 
to the great distance, till at length a shell having fallen 
into the powder magazine, and burst there, it occasioned 
an irreparable damage, in which 40 persons of the gar- 
rison perished. It may therefore be presumed, that if 
the Castle should be again exposed to a siege, and had 
to straggle against a cannonade, it would in a very 
short time be compelled to surrender. It has been, 
therefore, to guard against such a perilous situation, 
that the Town Hill has been fortified, and that Fort 
Regent has been rendered the chief stronghold in the 
country. 

The Armoury is the only place in the Castle, which 
is worth attracting the notice of the visitor, on account 
of a fragment of that shell, which caused so much mis- 
chief during the siege, having been preserved there. 
As no journal of the siege has come down to us, it 
cannot be now ascertained on what day that fatal shell 
fell. The siege lasted from the 23rd of October, 1651, 
to the 15th of December following. The shell was a 
13 inch one, and 2 inches thick, being the largest size 
which was then in use. There is also another piece of 
curiosity kept in that Armoury, a large pair of anti- 
quated military boots, said to have belonged to Charles 
II. They are in good preservation, and exactly cor- 
respond with those still observable in paintings, which 
relate to that period. But what an inconsistency in the 
human mind ! The veneration paid by the Catholics 
to the relics of their Saints and holy men, is treated 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 113 

with derision by the Protestants, and yet we go with 
a kind of loyal superstition to handle an old piece of 
leather, because it had once been worn by a king of 
very equivocal character, and whom many historians 
have represented to have been a profligate and a tyrant. 

After having taken this hasty survey of Elizabeth 
Castle, it may not be uninteresting to give some ac- 
count of the small island upon which it is built. 

There is a tradition that at some remote period, it 
had formed a part of the main island, from which it 
had suffered a disruption by some violent convulsion of 
nature. The fact is extremely probable ; but in the 
absence of any positive historical record, it cannot be 
satisfactorily established. Several other parts of the 
coast of Jersey as well as of the neighbouring continent 
discover frequent traces of the encroachments of the 
sea. The formation of the Bay of St. Michael in Nor- 
mandy, and the separation of the isle of Chausey, from 
the main land, took place according to the learned Abbe 
Manet, during a violent storm about the year 600 of 
the Christian iEra. If a conjecture could be safely 
hazarded, it would be that the small island in question, 
and as it now appers, was severed at that time from 
the coast of Jersey. 

If we admit therefore that previously to that time, 
the external line of coast ran from the southern point 
of the hill of St. Helier, to the present Hermitage, the 
walls of Elizabeth Castle, and St. Aubin's Tower, the 
Bay, which now is, would have then presented a large 
extent of a flat and swampy shore, which when once 
that coast barrier had been broken through, would 
freely receive the flowing in of the tides, till in a few 
years the country would assume the appearance, which 



114 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

it has since permanently retained. The light superfi- 
cial soil would soon be washed away by the waves, 
while successive storms would soon cover the bottom 
with sands, or blow clouds of it towards the shore, 
which would gradually accumulate into downs and 
hillocks, till they had formed a new coast line. It adds 
weight to this supposition, that the water is shallow 
between the castle and the main island, and that a large 
extent of surface is still left uncovered by the tide. It 
is further observable that not far from Elizabeth Cas- 
tle, there are some beds of marie discoverable at low 
water, and that quite recently, when some workmen 
were examining the ground for laying the foundations 
of a Wet Dock, they came to a bed of peat, which led 
at once to the inference that this spot had been once a 
swamp. 

In process of time this little island had assumed the 
name of the holy martyr Helier, and it had been fur- 
ther consecrated by its having been made the site of a 
celebrated Abbey. When a grant from the then arch- 
bishop of Rouen, united it to that of Cherbourg during 
the latter part of the reign of Henry II., the marsh and 
mill of St. Helier, are mentioned among its possessions. 
That does not however by any means lead to the in- 
ference that the islet still made a part of the main land. 

The very ruins of the Abbey of St. Helier have 
vanished, nor can its exact site, or even extent be now 
ascertained. It is not however probable that the 
whole of the ground had been built upon. The con- 
stant tradition is that subsequently to the martyrdom 
of Helier, and in better times, Guillaume de Hamon, 
a Norman noble founded this abbey, as a sort of expi- 
ation for the guilt, which his pagan ancestors had in- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 115 

curred in shedding the blood of that holy martyr. 
The date of that foundation is of the year 1125, only 
seventeen years before that of the Abbey of the Vow, at 
Cherbourg by the Empress Maud; in 1142. The former 
Abbey on account of the circumstances which had led 
to its foundation, was held in high veneration by the 
inhabitants, and continued to nourish for a short time 
in a separate and independent state, with regular 
Canons after the rule of St. Austin, till an unexpected 
occurrence occasioned its decline. The Empress Maud, 
or Matilda, the daughter and heiress of Henry I. having 
been overtaken by a violent storm at sea, during her 
wars with King Stephen, when on her return from 
England to Cherbourg, vowed in her distress, that if 
it should please God to preserve her, she would sing a 
hymn in honour of the Virgin, and found an Abbey 
where she might land. It is said that the master of 
the vessel was the first to discover the shore, and that 
on seeing it, he ran up to her in the exultation of the 
moment calling out, " Sing, Queen, here is the land." 
" Chant e Reyne, Vechy la terre" The words were 
ominous. The Abbey of Cherbourg, was named the 
Abbey of the Vow, the name of Chante Reyne, was 
given to a chapel, where the royal dame had landed, 
and the point of land, which had been first seen by the 
pilot, has ever since retained the appellation of Vechy. 
Matilda had a particular affection for her Abbey, 
and spared no efforts to promote its prosperity and to 
increase its endowments. The Abbey of St. Helier was 
then in a flourishing state, and in high repute for the 
sanctity of its inhabitants. She sent, therefore, for its 
Abbot Robert, to take charge of the newly founded 
Abbey of the Vow, and Algar, the then Bishop of 



116 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Coutances, sent her, at her orders, a supply of Canons 
regular after the rule of St. Augustine, for the supply 
of that establishment. 

From that period of short-lived prosperity, the 
Abbey of St. Helier began to decline. It is true that 
her son, Henry II., increased its revenues, by a dona- 
tion of the mill and marsh of St. Helier, but it was of 
little avail. The partiality for Cherbourg still pre- 
vailed, and that monarch was present at the consecra- 
tion of the Abbey Church in 1182, the ceremony of 
which was performed during the vacancy of the See 
of Countances by Henry, Bishop of Bayeux, by the 
Bishop of Avrances, and by the Joceline Bishop of 
Bath and Wells. 

It was atthis time that Henry II. united the Abbey of 
St. Helier, to that of the Vow at Cherbourg, on the 
ground, that the two had not revenues sufficiently large 
to exist in a separate state. This was done, as it was 
alleged, at the solicitation of the Archbishop of Rouen, 
or rather as the consequence of some intrigue to favor 
the Abbey of Cherbourg. The allegation tends, how- 
ever, to establish that the Abbey of St. Helier could 
not have been richly endowed, or been thought of much 
importance, as otherwise that union would not have 
taken place at the expense of the latter without some 
plausible pretence. It was, therefore, declared by a 
Royal Charter of Incorporation, that Cherbourg should 
in future, be the chief seat of that monastic establish- 
ment, or, in other words, that St. Helier should yield 
the precedence to the Abbey of the Vow, of which it 
was to become a priory, and in reality, be but a humble 
appendage. Its establishment was limited to five resi- 
dent regular canons, subject to the regulations and the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 117 

government of the Abbot of Cherbourg, who was fur- 
ther intrusted with the adminstration of all the reve- 
nues. Such a grant was not only prejudicial to the 
Abbey, or rather Priory of St. Helier, but in fact, it must 
have nearly annihilated it ; and though it has often 
been ostentatiously described by the local historians of 
Jersey, it scarcely ought to have been referred to, unless 
it had been to prove, that in Catholic times, Jersey had 
also its Monastic Establishments. 

From that period nothing is known about the Priory 
of St. Helier, except the probability that it lingered 
in obscurity among the great number of small Establish- 
ments of the kind, which had then overspread the Bri- 
tish dominions. The Alien Priories, or the ecclesiasti- 
cal property of Foreign Abbots was granted by the Pope 
to Henry VI. That sort of property had, indeed, for 
a long time been very insecure to the owners, so that 
the confiscation of it could not have occasioned them 
any very serious, or unexpected loss. Henry granted 
soon after with them the other sources of his Royal 
Revenues in Jersey, to his Uncle, the celebrated Duke 
of Bedford, on his being appointed Lord of the Norman 
Islands. 

It is therefore evident that those revenues were vested 
in the Crown, but it is not altogether so plain, whether 
those Priories, were, with the change of their patrons 
entirely stripped of their means of support, and con- 
signed to immediate ruin, or whether they were still 
allowed to retain some pecuniary allowance. The latter 
would seem to be the most likely supposition ; but as 
no proofs of it can be adduced as far as the Island is 
concerned, it must be left as a matter of doubt, whether 
the Priory of St. Helier was deserted by its Canons 



118 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

under Henry VI., or a century later, when the Refor- 
mation was attended with the suppression of all those 
Religious Communities. The other lands and rents, 
which belonged to the Foreign Abbots, and which were 
not affected to the maintenance of any of the Priories 
were involved in the Confiscation, which immediately 
accrued to the Crown on the suppression of those 
Priories. 

After it had been decided in 1586, that the site of 
the Priory, should be that of the future Elizabeth 
Castle, the ruinous buildings of the former were rapidly 
demolished to make room for the exigencies of the 
latter. The Old Abbey Church was, however, the only 
part which escaped the general destruction, and con- 
tinued to serve as a place of worship for the garrison, 
till the siege in 1651. Some vaults under it happened 
to be then used for a Powder-magazine. During the 
bombardment, a shell, having fallen into it, and burst 
there, it did infinite mischief, and killed about 40 of 
the garrison by the explosion. The venerable church 
was utterly ruined, and with its demolition, has dis- 
appeared the very last vestige of the so-long famed, 
Priory of St. Helier. 

It is singular that the ruins of the Abbey of the Vow 
and of its adjunct, the Priory of St. Helier, have met 
with the same fate. The former has disappeared to 
make room for the Naval Improvements at Cherbourg, 
and the former has not the least remnant of itself left 
in the fortifications of Elizabeth Castle. What a me- 
lancholy reflection on the instability of all human 
affairs! How very justly did Juvenal express it ? 
Quandoquidem data suntipsis quoquefata sepulchris. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Description of the Hermitage. — Martyrdom of St. Helier. — 
Primitive Saints. — Antiquity of the ruined Hermitage. — 
Town Hill, now Fort Regent. — Historical Sketch of the 
Town Hill.— The South Hill. — Building of Fort Regent. 
Its present strength. — Magnificent View from the Ramparts. 
— Cause of the want of public walhso — Druidical remains 
discovered in levelling the hill in 1785. 

The next object, which meets the attention of the 
traveller, is the Hermitage of St. Helier. The legen- 
dary tale of that holy man is extremely interesting, but 
the details of it are scanty and want precision. It is 
a high and solitary rock, at a small distance to the East 
of the Castle, from which it is separated at high- water, 
and forms the western entrance into the small road. 
Half-way up the rock, and closely built into it, stands 
a small hermitage, which bears every internal mark of 
the most remote antiquity. It is entirely built-up of 
small stones, in the coarsest kind of masonry, some- 
thing like that of the remnants of Grosnez Castle, 
which we shall have occasion to mention in its proper 
place. This rocky habitation has for ages been left 
desolate; the doors, and the window of the little room 
are gone ; but a cavity in the rock, scooped to the size 
of a human body, plainly indicates the hermits' bed of 
stone. The top of the rock contains a little garden, 
whose bleak exposure commands an extensive prospect 
of the distant horizon. There is a constant and un~ 



120 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

interrupted tradition, that about a thousand years ago, 
a holy and contemplative individual had chosen this 
spot for his seclusion from the world, where, by his 
mortifications and prayers, he might render himself 
worthy to inherit the joys of heaven. It is not known 
whether Helier was the first hermit, who had retired 
to that solitude, or whether he was one out of a long 
succession of hermits. The island had already been 
long converted to Christianity by the Armorican Saints 
and other Missionaries; but its population was rude, im- 
perfectly civilized, and incapable of much defence. It 
was afterwards exposed to the depredations of the Nor- 
man pirates. Those marauders were, not only Pagans, 
but particularly hostile to the Christian name. It was 
during one of those predatory expeditions that Helier 
fell into their hands, and was massacred. But the spirit 
of the times excited the sympathy of his countrymen, 
and the blood, which he had resolutely poured to assert 
his religious faith, was considered as the test of mar- 
tyrdom, his anniversary was recorded in the Register 
of the Cathedral of Coutances, as having happened on 
the 17th of July. A perpetual veneration has attached 
to the memory of that holy and celebrated man. His 
hermitage still nearly remains, after the lapse of so 
many ages, in the same state that it was during the 
time of Ms seclusion. He gave his name to the ad- 
joining islet, and what was probably then but a fishing 
village, has since grown into the large and thriving 
town of St. Helier. 

Many of our readers are not aware that several of 
the secondary order of Saints were not regularly canon- 
ised by the Pope ; but that they are indebted for their 
title to the gratitude of posterity. Any one, who in 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 121 

modern times would be esteemed among his neighbours 
as having been disinterested, pious, and humane, was 
immediately acknowledged among his own immediate 
circle as a public benefactor, who had had something 
more than human in his nature. Religion did its part 
by enrolling him for a Saint, and superstition either 
believed, or fondly imagined fictitious miracles in sup- 
port of its pleasing delusion. Still, if we admit this 
to have been the origin of most of the local saints, a 
great deal that is praiseworthy will still remain, and 
it will appear that for the most part, those venerated 
personages, were neither over-heated zealots, nor igno- 
rant barbarians, but men laborious and unremitting 
in their calling, and who went about doing good in 
their generation. These were indeed the Saints Vin- 
cent de Paul, the Man of Ross, and the Howards of 
their times. The claims of such individuals rest, in- 
deed, on higher grounds than those of heroes and 
statesmen, whose track has been but too often marked 
by the sorrows and the desolation of their fellow- 
creatures. 

After having trodden with reverential awe on the stone 
floor of the Hermitage, the next question that suggests 
itself, is, whether or not it continued to be tenanted by 
a succession of Hermits after the death of St. Helier. 
The night of ages has, however, left the answer in- 
volved in inextricable obscurity. It is not, however, 
to be supposed that such a hallowed cell, and within 
a few hundred yards of a religious house, should be 
suffered to continue untenanted, and to fall into decay. 
The Canons of the Priory would, therefore, take care 
that the hermit's place should be supplied, as often as 
a vacancy might happen, and minister to his little 



122 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

wants. If we assume, therefore, that this cell was 
occupied from the Martyrdom of St. Helier in the 
Ninth Century, to the suppression of Monasteries at the 
Reformation, it leaves a period of about 600 years, 
during which time it attracted the devotions and the 
pilgrimages of the faithful, who resided either in the 
island, or in any of the neighbouring parts of the con- 
tinent. Since that suppression it has now survived a 
dilapidation of 300 years ; and rude, lowly, and simple 
as it is, it is now acknowledged to be the most ancient, 
the most interesting, and the most valued monument 
within this beautiful island. As far as relates to the 
sanctity of its situation, this Hermitage does not yield 
to the recollections attached to the gigantic and desolate 
ruins of Netley, of Tintern, and of Melrose. 

After leaving the Hermitage, Fort Regent, or as it 
was anciently called, the Town Hill, presents itself. 
That elevated land forms the eastern boundary of St. 
Aubin's Bay, and under its shelter, as we have seen 
before, the artificial harbour of St. Helier, has been 
gradually constructed. 

That ridge projects out to a small distance into the 
Bay, and consists of two hills, the North, and the 
South hills, which are connected at their northern ex- 
tremity by a tract of comparatively lowland to another 
ridge of hills that run up into the country. Those two 
hills formerly belonged to the Lord of the Manor, and 
to a part of the Commonalty of St. Helier, and were 
sold to Government about the year 1800. The town 
of St. Helier has since been improved with the interest 
arising from the purchase money, which trustees were 
empowered to invest in the British funds. 

It had long been in contemplation to fortify those 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 123 

hills, as appears from the Rev. Mr. Falle's History of 
Jersey. After it had been ascertained that Mount 
Orgueil Castle was become untenable since the inven- 
tion of Artillery, it became indispensable to construct 
some other place of defence. The Duke of Somerset, 
the Regent of Edward VI., and who was at the same 
time Governor of Jersey, projected to build a citadel 
on the Town Hill. The project was, however, laid 
aside, as the hill had no spring water, and it was doubt- 
ful, whether it would be possible to sink wells into it, 
through its immense mass of granite, of a sufficient 
depth to obtain an adequate supply. Perhaps many 
causes concurred to render the scheme abortive. The 
resources of the island were inadequate for such an 
undertaking, and it is equally probable, that the Eng- 
lish Exchequer could not have then furnished the means 
which would be required. An Order of Council was 
indeed issued, in 1551, to fortify the Town Hill, and 
to effect several other objects ; all which, for the time 
remained without effect. Some thirty years afterwards 
it was decided to fortify the islet of St. Helier, and 
notwithstanding that, it was afterwards practically 
proved, during the siege of 1651, that Elizabeth Castle 
was commanded by the Town Hill,nothingwasdoneto 
remedy that evil till 1787 f when a citadel was ordered 
to be built on the South-hill. The work went on for 
some time, when it was suspended, and Afterwards 
finally discontinued. That citadel, if it had ever been 
finished would have been of a very limited extent, and 
would have commanded the Castle and the Harbour, 
but could have done very little to protect the town 
in case of its being occupied by an enemy. The im- 
perfect works are now but a mass of ruins, and can 



124 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

only be curious to ascertain the extent of the projected 
citadel. Some of the masonry, indeed, still remains, 
but the best part of the materials were subsequently 
removed, and used in the construction of Fort Regent. 

The two hills are separated from each other by an 
opening between them of comparavitely lower ground. 
Two roads branch off through that opening, one that 
winds round the Fort into the Town, and the other 
which leads to the village of Havre-des-Pas. 

This Southern hill is much smaller than the North 
hill. Professional men have differed in opinion as to 
the expediency of this attempt to fortify it, which took 
place soon after a visit of the Duke of Richmond, in 
1 786. The doubts expressed seem to have been answered 
in the negative, and it is now generally understood, 
that if that citadel had been finished, it would have 
interfered with the defences of Fort Regent. Its very 
existence there, would have obstructed the command 
which the batteries of the Fort would have had over 
the water. It is supposed that Government has deci- 
ded upon its removal, and on the final levelling of the 
ground. In the mean time it has granted permission 
to carry off from it, all the rubbish which might be 
wanted for filling up, and completing the various works 
wanted, for the improvement of the Harbour of St. 
Helier. Large quarries are working ronnd the hill, 
which have the effect of gradually diminishing its ex- 
tent, and of raising and rendering inaccessible what 
remains. 

We confine ourselves to facts without pretending to 
know, or even to conjecture what influenced the deci- 
sion of Government. It was finally resolved to confine 
the fortifications to the north hill, and to erect a regular 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 125 

fortress on its summit. The works were begun in 
1802, and were continued during the whole of the late 
war, and were not thoroughly completed till some years 
after the peace. They were carried on a large scale, 
almost gigantic efforts were made, a large well was 
excavated through the solid rock, to considerably below 
the level of the sea, and a copious and perennial supply 
of good water was secured to the garrison. 

According to Mr. Plees, a contemporary historian of 
Jersey, the well is 233 feet deep. It has a diameter of 
fourteen feet at the surface, and is walled round ; but 
after a short descent the width is reduced to nine feet, 
and the walling is discontinued, the rest of the well hav- 
ing been cut all the way through the live rock, which is 
in its whole depth, of the same quality. The well has 
generally from eighty to a hundred feet of very fine 
water, the daily produce of which is from six to eight 
thousand gallons. 

The excavation was a most laborious undertaking, 
and necessarily attended with considerable expense ; 
but the advantage of so large and constant a supply, 
must to a garrison be incalculable. 

The interior of the citadel was also abundantly 
furnished with all the conveniences, which might be 
necessary for its defence in case of a siege, as well as 
with all the resources which might facilitate the efforts 
of art, courage, and experience to thwart the views of 
the enemy, and to protect effectually Elizabeth Castle, 
the harbour, and the town. It is said that those works 
did not cost much less than a million sterling. That 
sum could never have been supplied by the island, and 
therefore, could not have been raised, but from the 
united funds of a large empire. Nor would it, on the 



126 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

other hand, have been expended, if Government had 
not been decidedly convinced, of the loyalty of the in- 
habitants of the Channel Islands, and of their great 
naval and commercial importance. Those various 
fortifications have had the further effect of rendering 
their union with Britain almost indissoluble, as in case 
of an attack, they would hold out much longer than 
would be necessary to bring over a sufficient force from 
the protecting state to their relief. As long, therefore, 
as Britain shall maintain its naval superiority, the 
Channel Islands shall be safe, and their connection 
with the British Empire, as long as itself exists. For 
if ever England should lose the command of the seas, 
the Channel Islands would not only be severed from it ; 
but the whole of its gigantic power, would fall to pieces, 
and be utterly annihilated. 

It has been said that Fort Regent is nearly impreg- 
nable, and it is evident that without either c owardice, 
or surprise, it could not be taken but after a regular 
and protracted siege. No near approaches can be made 
to it, as the town lies between two hills, which are the 
nearest to it. Those again, are at a considerable dis- 
tance, nor do they seem to be of a sufficient height to 
command Fort Regent. 

Like Elizabeth, and Mount Orgueil Castles, it is 
open, at all times, to ordinary visitors ; but if any per- 
sons were to be desirous of a more particular inspection 
of it, they would no doubt easily obtain a permission 
on application to the proper authorities. The view 
from the ramparts is magnificient in the extreme, a 
large and well built town, lying as it were under one's 
feet, the Castle, the sands, St. Aubin's Bay, and the 
encircling amphitheatre of land; while the eastern side 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 127 

of the Fort presents, St. Clement's Bay with an ex- 
tensive tract of low land, which is among the best 
cultivated, and the most fertile in Jersey. It is from 
that spot that on a clear day is seen rising above the 
distant horizon, the towers of the Cathedral of Cou- 
tances, and a wide extent of the coast of France, while 
in another direction, and almost level with the horizon, 
the dangerous rocks of the Minquiers stretch them- 
selves for some leagues over the sea, and lie about half- 
way between Jersey and St. Malo. 

The Town Hill, previous to the erection of Fort 
Regent, had from time immemorial been used as a 
Common by the inhabitants, and the plateau at top, 
which had been levelled some years before for a parade, 
was very spacious. Though bleak and much exposed in 
rough weather, it was much resorted to for recreation 
at other times. On Sundays and on holidays, it was 
the best frequented walk of any in the neighbourhood 
of the Town. The sale of the hill was, therefore, 
attended with a privation to the inhabitants, to whom 
no compensation of the kind has yet been made by the 
Trustees of that purchase money. This was lost sight 
of, and the money was appropriated to what were then 
thought to be more pressing objects, the right of the 
Common was alienated, and a pleasant and salubrious 
walk was lost, a deficiency, which, after forty years 
has not yet been made up out of the ample fund, 
to which the town had just claims, that a part of it 
should be expended for that purpose. If, in the mean 
time, it excites the astonishment of strangers that such 
a thriving town as St. Helier, should be without a good 
public walk, or airy piece of land belonging to the 
community, and set apart for its recreation, it cannot 

M 



128 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

be foreign to our purpose to indicate the true cause of 
it to our readers. 

We have now seen how the small isle of St. Helier 
has been desecrated from the purposes of Religion, to 
which it had been so long devoted, and how the holy- 
repose of a Monastery, has been exchanged for the 
vigilance, and the incessant discipline required for a 
military station. It remains now to trace, nearly the 
cause and effect, to the hill of St. Helier and to Fort 
Regent. The following is a summary of the circum- 
stances. 

The summit of the hill was very uneven, though 
generally speaking, it was a kind of table land, with 
a slope to the Southward, at the point where the two 
hills meet. After the invasion of 1781, large intrench- 
ments had been thrown round this table land, which 
of course have all entirely disappeared after the con- 
struction of Fort Regent. On the highest point a 
beacon had been erected, to spread the warning of an 
invading enemy round the island ; in other respects, 
the hill was bleak, barren, and rocky, and covered with 
stunted furze. This was the neglected state in which 
it lay, when it was resolved, in 1785, to level the un- 
even surface of the summit for a parade. There was 
in this place a mound of earth, which, though ap- 
parently artificial, does not seem to have attracted 
any particular notice before. On removing the soil 
and the rubbish, which was necessary to level it, the 
labourers discovered a Poquelaye, or Druidical Temple, 
composed of unhewn stones, and of a different con- 
struction from any that had hitherto been found in the 
island. Many of those monuments have, inded, been 
discovered at different times, and more are supposed to 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 129 

be concealed under similar eminences. The nature of 
those Poquelayes is intelligible, from their very deriva- 
tion in Celtic : poque, a heap, and laye, a stone. It is 
said, that within the last 150 years, rather more than 
about 50 collections of those stones have been found in 
Jersey, some of which are still visible. But the num- 
ber is, considerably diminished, owing to the depreda- 
tions of sacrilegious hands, who have carried away the 
stone, to be used for common purposes. This great 
number of Druidical remains, seems to prove that the 
Druids gave the preference to insular situations, such 
as Mona, or Anglesey, for the erection of their temples, 
and that Jersey, at that remote period, which must 
have been prior to the conversion of the natives, in the 
fifth and sixth centuries, must have already possessed 
a very considerable population. 

It is well known that the Romans persecuted the 
Druids, whose religion they held in the utmost abhor- 
rence, on account of its supposed horrid and sanguinary 
rites. Those proud conquerors were also, jealous of 
the influence which that unhallowed priesthood re- 
tained over the minds of the vanquished people. The 
Druids, therefore, naturally endeavoured to avert the 
destruction, which was threatened to them and to their 
temples. On the approach of any imminent danger, 
they had, therefore, recourse to the expedient of with- 
drawing the latter from their reach and observation, 
by covering them with earth. The concealment con- 
tinued so long, that the very knowledge of their 
existence was gradually lost ; and, as the country 
became afterwards Christian, the people were more 
desirous to forget than to retrace those seats of the 
Pagan superstitions of their ancestors. 



130 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

This monument is supposed to be one of the most 
perfect remains of Druidism found in any part of 
Europe, but, at the same time, it is much to be regretted 
that it has long ceased to be in the possession of the 
island. It is known, however, to every one acquainted 
with its local history, that the island had been indebted 
to Marshal Conway, for very important services, and 
that the public gratitude could not do too much for 
such a personage. This may account for the enthu- 
siasm, with which the States presented him with this 
valuable piece of antiquity; but it cannot entirely ex- 
culpate them in having voted away what might have 
been considered as inalienable, and as being the heir- 
loom of their country. The conduct also of General 
Conway was injudicious, and such as he would have 
never adopted on mature reflection ; for there was a 
sort of vandalism in thus availing himself of the lavish 
liberality of an improvident people. A parallel to this 
is found in modern times, in the curiosities, which 
Lord Elgin brought from Athens, and which now 
adorn the British Museum. It has been said, never- 
theless, of late years, that this temple might still be 
restored to the island. It were to be wished that such 
a suggestion might be correct, and that it might ul- 
timately be reconstructed in some appropriate situation, 
where it might permanently remain to be an honor to 
the country, and a gratification to the feelings of the 

habitants. 



CHAPTER V. 

Jersey Hospital. — Its foundation and gradual increase. — 
Management of the Hospital. — Let for a Barrack, and 
destroyed by fire in 1783. — Compensation granted by the 
British Government. — Rebuilt in 1793. — The Burial- 
ground for Strangers. — Another for the Jews. — All Saints' 
Chapel. — The Parade. — The Jail and House of Correction. 
— Prisoners formerly confined in Mount Orgueil Castle. — 
The Halberdiers. — Chaplain. — Prison Board. — Esplanade. 
Weigh Bridge. — Official Letter s from Mr . Maule. 

Our travellers returned to their lodgings well pleased 
with their excursion, and in the course of the evening 
they agreed to devote the next day to visit the town of 
St. Helier. As the next morning happened to be fine, 
they sallied out early, and were ultimately highly grati- 
fied with their walk. As many parts of the town of 
St. Helier have been already described in Ouless' 
Scenic Beauties, and the explanations in that work 
were prepared by the author of this Pictorial Guide, 
the following quotation, which refers to a great part of 
the town, will not be unacceptable. 

" The town and parish of St. Helier contain about 
24,000 inhabitants, or one half of the population of Jersey. 
The former was originally but a collection of low and 
miserable thatched houses; during the government of 
Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1601, it contained but a few in- 
habitants; nor was it paved till long afterwards, during 
the reign of Charles II. 

" The town began to increase, though slowly, after 



132 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the erection of the South Pier, till at the breaking out 
of the French Revolution in 1789, when it might have 
contained a population of between three or four thousand 
souls. The subsequent increase of St. Helier is to be 
dated from that period. The great number of emigrants 
and French clergy, who sought refuge here, rendered 
additional buildings necessary, till in a few years the 
thatched and other mean habitations, had totally disap- 
peared. The French revolution was succeeded by the 
long wars, which did not cease till 1816. During all 
that time the island was free from invasion, and enjoyed the 
advantages, which resulted from the extraordinary ex- 
penditure incurred by a large naval and military esta- 
blishment. The commerce of the island was also visibly 
augmented ; but that prosperity was still further advanced 
by the immense sums of money, which the building of 
Fort Regent and of several barracks, occasioned to be 
spent in the country. It had been anticipated, that the 
return of peace would be attended with a cessation of 
the prosperity, which flowed from Government sources j 
but on the contrary, the trade and the shipping, instead 
of having been affected by that circumstance, began to 
increase in a most extraordinary degree. The harbour 
was brought to its present enlarged dimensions, and 
though not many years have since elapsed, it has become 
so inconveniently small, that at this moment, the public 
is actively employed in the construction of a port on a 
still larger scale. 

" The limits of the town were much confined before the 
French Revolution.— Halkett-place, the markets, and the 
streets to the north of them, were nothing but meadows. 
The same may be said of La Motte-street, and of all the 
additions, which have been made to the east of the house 
of Clement Hemery, Esq. New-street, Don-street, and 
David-place, are all new additions. In Bond-street, the 
cattle fair, or market, was then held along the south wall 
of the churchyard. Beyond this end the sea there was 
nothing but a barren waste of sand, except the ruins of a 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 133 

fuller's mill, a small beach, and some offensive slaughter- 
houses. It was probably at this place, that the few boats 
belonging to the town were secured before the harbour 
had been constructed. The same may be said of the west, 
or lower end of the town ; for beyond Charing Cross, 
which was the site of the insular prison, which has since 
been demolished, scarcely a good house existed. Sand- 
street, as its name imports, was then but a waste of sand, 
over which were scattered some ruinous thatched cottages 
of the rudest description. All Saints' Chapel, and the 
streets in its neighbourhood, did not then exist. The 
same may be said in a great measure of Several other 
places in the skirts of the town, such as Great Union- 
road, Rouge Bouillon, St. John's Road, the Coie, George 
Town, and Havre-des-Pas, which, instead of being large 
and nourishing suburbs, contained then but a few homely 
farm houses. Add to this that most of the houses, which 
were standing at that time, having been rebuilt more lofty 
and capacious, contain now a larger number of inmates. 
The ground, which had been reserved to most of the 
houses for gardens and other purposes, has been, as it 
increased in value, sold for building. Even the sand, 
which had been embanked from the sea at the Esplanade, 
has been filled up, portioned out into several new streets, 
and now forms a considerable addition to the town in one 
of its most commercial and busy parts." 

We make a few additional descriptions. — At the 
west-end of the town stands the Jersey Hospital, a 
very large and spacious mass of buildings. The estab- 
lishment combines all the advantages of an English 
infirmary, a general poor-house for all the parishes in 
the island, an asylum for lunatics, and a refuge for the 
houseless and destitute, who have no settlement in the 
island. In a large country these form separate estab- 
lishments ,- but that could not be done in a place of 
such narrow limits as Jersey, and on the other hand 



134 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

that combination does not seem to have been attended 
with inconvenience. The Hospital has a very impos- 
ing appearance on the outside, and its internal arrange- 
ment is highly praiseworthy for its cleanliness and the 
attentions paid to the wants and the little comforts of 
its destitute, sick, and aged inmates, which forcibly 
reminds one of the Alms' house of the Man of Ross, 

He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state, 
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate, 
Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest, 
The young who labour, and the old who rest. 

The entrance to the Hospital is over a spacious in- 
closed lawn or garden, which is laid out in front, where 
the sober, and well-behaved poor are allowed to take 
exercise and recreation. 

The Hospital was founded about a century ago, by 
the Executors of Mrs. Bartlett, of the town of St. 
Aubin. This munificent establishment rose from small 
beginnings, and has been since gradually increased to 
its present state by subsequent benefactions. One of 
the wings was built about fifteen years ago, at the ex- 
pence of the Executors of the late Charles Robin, Esq., 
of St. Aubin, who appropriated part of it for a chapel, 
and further provided an endowment of £30 a-year, 
towards the salary of a Chaplain. 

The superintendence of the Hospital belongs to the 
States, whose power is again delegated to a managing 
Committee chosen from their own body, who issue their 
orders to the Chaplain, the Surgeon, the Master, and 
the Matron of the establishment. There was till 
lately a considerable income belonging to the founda- 
tion, on which the different parishes were entitled to 
place paupers free of expense, each according as they 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 135 

are assessed to the general rate of the island. The 
number of those foundation paupers, was, however, 
but small. The great body of its inmates, now amount- 
ing to almost 350, consists of destitute strangers, or of 
the widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors, who 
had died, while they were stationed in the island. 
These occasion a heavy expense, which is defrayed by 
the island, according to the proportions to which the 
different parishes are assessed. 

This establishment met with a singular misfortune 
in 1783, Government having thought it necessary to 
increase the military establishment in the Channel 
islands towards the end of the American war, and there 
not being a sufficiency of barracks to accommodate all 
the troops, it became indispensable to have recourse to 
some expedients, to avoid putting the inhabitants to 
the inconvenience of having them quartered upon them. 
In consequence of this, several private houses were 
hired for temporary barracks, and among the rest, the 
States were prevailed upon to let the Hospital for that 
purpose. The poor were drafted away into another 
residence, and the soldiers installed into a dwelling, 
which its founders had exclusively appropriated for the 
relief of the indigent and the unfortunate, a measure 
of so equivocal a nature, that it cannot be even pal- 
liated, but on the plea of extreme necessity. The 
States yielded to the pressing solicitations of the Go- 
vernor, and surrendered the Hospital j but, whether it 
was the effect of deception, avarice, or imprudence, it 
was not longbefore that measure was severely punished. 
About a year afterwards, in 1783, the powder magazine, 
which was kept there, caught fire, blew up, destroyed 
the building, and killed several persons on the spot. 



136 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The Hospital then remained a scorched and uninhabi- 
table ruin for some years, till at length the claims of 
the island having been taken into the consideration of 
the British Government, the States obtained a com- 
pensation for the destruction of the Hospital, which 
soon afterwards rose again from its ruins, and forms 
now the present building. The interruption lasted 
ten years, as it was not till 1793, that the poor were 
admitted again into then: inheritance, which has not 
since ceased to prosper and to increase in reputation. 

Farther to the West, and the very last object at the 
foot of the hill, is a large inclosed burying ground. It 
was purchased by the States in 1832, during the preva- 
lence of the Cholera, and in that place were deposited 
most of the victims of that terrible pestilence. It has 
been mostly appropriated to the burial of strangers, 
and of other persons belonging to the lower classes of 
society. There are few or no monuments worth men- 
tioning in this humble receptable of the dead, where all 
is peace and solitude, and well beseems the memories 
of those who were unknown in their generation, and 
were consigned to this place but to be the sooner for- 
gotten. The Jews have also a small unostentatious 
burying ground in the immediate vicinity. 

All Saints is a neat Chapel of Ease, belonging to the 
parish of St. Helier. It lies on the west side of the 
Parade, on an artificial mound, at a small distance from 
the Hospital, and was built about 12 years ago by sub- 
scription, to which the States munificently contributed 
£200. The minister is appointed by the Rector of St. 
Helier. The Chapel derives its name of All Saints, 
from its having been built on the site of a burying- 
ground, which was closed after the purchase of the 
new cemetery for strangers. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 137 

The Parade, in which All Saints' Chapel has been 
erected, was, as its name imports, made during the last 
war, for the convenience of exercising the troops. As 
the town of St. Helier had originally been built at the 
east end of the valley, and under the shelter of the 
Town Hill, a considerable track of ground at its 
western extremity, had been left as an unprofitable 
waste, overspread with sandy hillocks, and a copious 
growth of the sand-rush. It formed an extensive Com- 
mon, and as there was then scarcely any demand for 
building, it had been left for ages unimproved, and ex- 
posed to fresh accumulations of sand, which every 
violent storm blew in directly over it from the sea. 
After this Common- had been levelled, and converted 
into a Parade, and the Hospital and Jail had been 
fixed near it, the neighbourhood began to improve, 
the ground acquired a certain value, and some good 
houses were built. It then occurred, that the Parade 
would be well adapted for a public walk. The opinion 
prevailed, and the whole was laid out for that purpose 
in gravel walks, and planted with rows of ornamental 
trees, which have not, however, grown so rapidly as 
had been expected. That circumstance can be easily 
accounted for, as the substratum, in which they had 
been planted, was but a barren sand, incapable of sup- 
porting vegetation. The only remedy for this, and 
which has at length been adopted, would have been to 
fill the pits, in which they had been planted, with 
vegetable mould, in which the roots might have had 
room to expand. As the ground becomes sheltered and 
improved, the trees will also become more luxuriant, 
and as the neighbourhood will have a greater number 
of modern elegant houses, it may be easily anticipated, 



133 fc HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

that at no very distant period, the Parade will become 
a fashionable place of recreation, and afford to the in- 
habitants of St. Helier, a public walk, in every way 
worthy of their populous town. 

The Jail adjoins the Hospital, and like it, the main 
entrance is from Gloucester Street. It is a strong and 
substantial modern edifice. It has a handsome and 
elegant appearance, and its front is of the most beauti- 
ful granite found in the island, and seems to be well 
calculated to promote the health, and to secure the safe 
custody of the prisoners. At a small distance it might 
be easily taken for a palace, or at least for some large 
public establishment. A house of correction was an- 
nexed to it a few years ago, and is subject to the same 
regulations as the jail. 

In ancient times the King's Prison was in Mount 
Orgueil, from whence the prisoners were conducted 
almost five miles, to take their trial before the Royal 
Court at St. Helier's. There was a body of about 300 
pike or javelin men, who were bound by the tenure of 
their estates, to attend the prisoners to their trial, and 
back again to the Castle. That having been found 
to be attended w T ith a great deal of inconvenience, it 
was resolved to build a jail at St. Helier, which was 
accordingly done under Charles II. Its site was in 
that part of the town, which is now called Charing 
Cross ; but having in its turn become ruinous and in- 
convenient, the States decided, that it could not be 
repaired, and ought to be demolished. That happened 
about thirty years ago, when the present jail was built to 
replace it, at an expense of above £16,000, and as the 
funds for that purpose had to be raised by loan, they 
form at this moment no inconsiderable part of the 
public debt of the island. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 139 

The internal administration of the prison may be 
comprised in a very short description. The mainte- 
nance of the prisoners was formerly at the charge of 
the Governor, as being the Grantee of the Royal Reve- 
nues in Jersey. As the Jailor was then, but poorly re- 
munerated, he was allowed to sell drink without licence, 
principally for the accommodation of the debtors. 
That system has been done away with, within these 
few years, the maintenance of the establishment has 
been divided between the Governor and the States, and 
the Jailor, receives an adequate salary as a compensa- 
tion for the loss of his license. The spirit of public 
economy, which has operated so many reforms in Eng- 
land, has extended its minute ramifications even to this 
establishment. The public executioner was an officer 
under the Crown, who was acknowledged as such in 
the King's Rent Roll, and was entitled to the pay of a 
common soldier, as well as to a suitable dwelling. But 
the office having been found expensive, and the salary 
burthensome, it was abolished, when all his emoluments 
reverted to the Crown. A part of the inferior duties, 
such as the flagellations of culprits, by sentence of the 
Royal Court, has been provided for by being assigned 
to the Turnkeys. 

Formerly the Jail was without any spiritual provi- 
sion, and it is only within these few years, that a 
Chaplain officiates in it, for though a Chapel had been 
built, it had been left untenanted. That duty has de- 
volved to the Chaplain of the Hospital, who receives 
an additional salary from the States, to perform that 
charitable work. 

The management of the Jail was formerly in the 
hands of a Committee of the States ; but it is now 



140 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

entrusted to a special Prison Board of six Members, at 
the head of whom are the Governor and the Bailly. 
Let it then be expected, that from the apparently pious, 
disinterested, and philanthropic character of some of 
those gentlemen, the public will not be disappointed in 
seeing that establishment nourish, as if it had passed 
under the administration of some modern Howard, 
of our own growth. 

On leaving the Jail, and coming down Gloucester 
Street the traveller will find himself on the road, which 
runs parallel with the Esplanade. This is a large sea 
wall, which begins at the north end of the Harbour, 
and is carried in a direction parallel to the town for 
half-a-mile, which it is calculated to protect against 
the fury and encroachment of the waters. The road 
from St. Aubin, and from the western parishes, has 
been continued over this esplanade, till it joins the 
quays, and opens for those parishes a direct communi- 
cation with every part of the Harbour, without the 
delay or inconvenience of traversing the town. 

At the end of this esplanade, and in an open space, 
a weighing machine has been erected, the superinten- 
dant of which is appointed by the States. 

We conclude with an extract from a letter, written 
the 6th July, 1837, by order of Lord John Russell, 
then Secretary of State, to the States of Jersey, relat- 
ing to the projected alterations in the administration of 
the Jail, which have since been adopted : — 

" Lord John Russell is glad to learn, from the report of 
the States, that they concur with him, in the propriety of 
paying the charge for an executioner, and the expenses of 
the transportation of felons to the Hulks, out of the Prison 
fund, and His Lordship has every reason to believe that 
the sum of £600 to be raised in equal parts, by a contribu- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 141 

tion of the King's Revenue, and by the States of the Island, 
will be amply sufficient to defray these charges, as well as 
the expenditure for the maintenance of the Prison, and 
every other charge connected with the management and 
safe custody of the Prisoners. Should, however, from 
any unforeseen cause, the general expenses of the Prison 
exceed the sum of £600, Lord John Russell firmly be- 
lieves that when the States witness the important advan- 
tages arising from an approved system of prison discipline, 
they will readily provide for such excess, and His Lord- 
ship hopes that upon a reconsideration of this point, the 
States will withdraw their opposition to this proposal. 

" With respect to the observation of the States, on the 
composition of the Prison Board, Lord John Russell con- 
siders that six members will be sufficient, and His Lord- 
ship now proposes that the States nominate three members, 
one of the three to be the Bailiff, the remaining three being 
members ex-officio, viz., the Lieut. -Governor, the Sheriff 
and one of the King's Receivers. 

" I am further directed by Lord John Russell to desire 
you will take the earliest opportunity of calling the atten- 
of the States to the subject, and as Lord John Russell 
does not anticipate any further difficulties, His Lordship 
has no doubt the States will proceed forthwith to take such 
steps as may be necessary for improving the state of the 
Prison in the Island of Jersey, and every facility will be 
given by Dr. Hawkins, the Prison Inspector, to forward 
the desirable object. 

" As soon as the Board is constituted they should pro- 
ceed to prepare plans, which, however, must be submitted 
to the Secretary of State for approval. 

" I have the honor to be, Sir, 

" Your obedient Servant, 

" F. MAULE. 

" The Lieut.-Governor of Jersey." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Public Library.'— Court House and Hall of the States. — The 
Royal Square. — Statue of George II. — The Streets. — The 
Theatre. — Markets, Prices, %c. 

Nearly in the centre of the town stands a plain brick 
building, containing a large and valuable public library. 
It is open to any person of respectability, who resides 
in the Island, on the payment of a small and even in- 
adequate subscription to the librarian. It contains 
many scarce and high priced books, especially in 
Divinity and Ecclesiastical History. Of late years, 
the States of the Island have occasionally made liberal 
grants of money, which have been applied to the pur- 
chase of the best Latin, English, and French Classics. 
There is a Latin Inscription over the front door, which 
states, that this library was founded by the Rev. Philip 
Falle, a native of Jersey, Chaplain to William III, 
and a Prebendary of Durham, who was then almost 
eighty years old. It may be worth while to observe 
that Mr. Falle was the same person as the honest and 
upright Historian of Jersey, whose work is still held 
in such high estimation, that it has become in some 
sort a text-book. Mr. Falle, lived to a very advanced 
age, and expired at his Rectory of Shenley, near St. 
Alban's, in 1742, when he was almost a nonagenerian. 
The Library received a large accession, by the gift 
of the books of the late Rev. Daniel Dumaresq, D.D., 
a Canon of Salisbury, and also a native of Jersey. 



144 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

That truly good and learned divine, lived also to be 
almost as old as Mr. Faile, and terminated his earthly 
pilgrimage for a blessed immortality in 1805. 

The situation of the library, has been thought by 
many, to be confined and inconvenient, and, therefore, 
susceptible of receiving considerable improvements. 
As the same objections have long been made to the 
Court House, it has been in contemplation to rebuild 
it, with the library annexed, in some more commodious 
situation ; but the execution of such a project, would 
require large sacrifices from the resources of the coun- 
try, and numerous other difficulties would have yet 
to be surmounted before this could be carried into 
effect. The librarian is in the nomination of the States. 
That situation which lately became vacant, had been 
held for nearly a century, by the respectable family of 
the Quesnels, through successive elections. Mr. John 
Falle is the newly elected Librarian. He has the house 
for a residence, but on the whole the office enjoys but 
a slender remuneration. 

The Court-house, or as it is called in French La Co- 
hue Roy ale, is built on the southern side of the Royal 
Square. The word seems to have been derived from 
coeo, a Latin word, which means to assemble, though 
ill nature has often assigned it to Cohue, an old Nor- 
man word, which means confusion. Though the pri- 
soners were formerly detained in Mount Orgueil Cas- 
tle, they were always brought to St. Helier for trial, 
at least from the time that any of the Records of that 
Court are extant, which do not begin till the latter end 
of the reign of Henry VII. The business of the Court 
before that period could not have been much; but 
whether the Records previous to that date have been. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 145 

lost, or whether some had been regularly kept, it is not 
possible to determine. The building is at the charge 
of the Crown, and has been rebuilt more than once. 
The present edifice is a handsome one, and was raised 
in the early part of the reign of George III. It has 
however undergone various expensive and ornamental 
improvements, which have generally been paid for by 
the States, out of the public funds of the island. The 
interior is distributed as well as circumstances can 
admit, the entrance is into a spacious hall, which on 
Court days is open to the public. At the end of this 
hall, is the Court itself, with the necessary accom- 
modations for the magistrates, the men of business, and 
the different persons more immediately interested in 
the proceedings. A large room on the first story, and 
fronting to the Royal Square, has been fitted up for 
the meetings of the insular States, with a handsome 
gallery, which has been erected at its lower end, when 
only a few years ago, the debates were thrown open to 
the curiosity of the public. Adjoining to the hall of 
the States are three other rooms, one appropriated to 
the keeping of the records of the Court and States, 
another as a registry office for copies of all deeds 
executed for the sale and transfer of real property, and 
a third reserved as a chamber for the Bailly and the 
Jurats, where they occasionally meet in private con- 
sultation. 

This disposition of the Court house was originally 
sufficiently convenient, and quite adapted to the due 
transaction of official business. The change of times 
and circumstances has however occasioned many com- 
plaints about the inadequacy of that edifice. That 
part of the building, where the Court sits, is so much 



146 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

annoyed from the noise of carts in the adjoining street, 
that it often occasions an interruption to public 
business. Many plans have often been devised to 
remedy that inconvenience ; but the most effectual one 
would be to remove the Court to a less objectionable 
situation. Two things have however hitherto pre- 
vented it; the former, the central situation of the 
Court for business, and the latter, the heavy expence 
which it would entail on the public. It is to be ob- 
served, that the larger part of the revenues of the is- 
land is exclusively applied to the building and im- 
proving of harbours. While that continues to the 
case, there will be here but few disposable funds to 
be expended on works of ornament or of general 
utility. The different chapels, the theatres, the national 
schools, and every other public building in St. Helier, 
has been raised by private benefactions ; the public 
purse has contributed nothing. 

In front of the Court House is what is now called 
the Royal Square, whose capacious area, was used for 
a market, till 1803. It was the spot where the short 
struggle of the 6th of January 1781, which ended in 
the triumph and the death of Peirson. It is now 
much frequented, particularly on Court days, as a 
kind of Exchange for the transaction of business, and 
as a public walk. 

There is a statue, at the upper end of the Square 
which passes for one of George II., though doubts 
are entertained on the matter. It was given in ex- 
change for permission to build against one of the 
ends of the Court House, by one Gosset, a Frenchman, 
in 1749. It was inaugurated with a good deal of 
ceremony by all the local authorities, civil, and mili- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 147 

taiy. The statue is gilt, and in a Roman dress, but is 
said to be of lead, with a new head which was fitted to 
its bust, when it was allowed to assume the name of 
George II. That head is not unlike those on the 
coins of that sovereign. 

Since the sale of the Town Hill, to Government, in 
1801, the town has lost its best public walk for health 
and recreation. The Square, and the Harbour, are 
the only public walks remaining ; but in course of 
time when the trees planted on the Parade, have grown 
larger, that spot may eventually become one of fashion- 
able resort. 

The streets were formerly narrow, and inconvenient, 
as in most of the old country towns, in England. 
Those streets have participated in the general increase 
of wealth, and the unceasing desire for improvement. 
Most of the old streets have been widened wherever it 
was practicable, the houses which lined them have 
been rebuilt, and the ground floors fitted up into ele- 
gant shops. There are few towns out of London, 
where the streets present a more copious and splendid 
display at the shop windows. Of the old streets, King 
Street is the best for trade, being the great thoroughfare 
for the six western parishes, and as it were a kind of 
London Strand in miniature. Halkett Place is the 
most fashionable, the richest, and the handsomest of 
all the new streets ; Broad Street is also a wide and 
open street, being almost as extensive as the Royal 
Square. The town further, contains several modern 
ranges of buildings or terraces, the principal of which 
are Grosvenor Terrace, and the Crescent. 

The latter was built not many years ago ; in the 
centre of which a neat and elegant Theatre was erected 



148 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

at the same period. It is a beautiful edifice with a 
facade of Doric pillars and an ornament to the town. 
The inside of the Theatre, is fitted up with all the con- 
veniences and decorations usually required for such an 
establishment. It is occasionally occupied by per- 
formers either from England, or France. This theatre 
was built as a private speculation, and has long been 
thought to be a losing concern. The taste for the 
drama was never very flourishing in Jersey, and the 
religious spirit of the times has rendered it of late 
years still more discouraged. A great deal has been 
written against and in defence of the drama, and it is 
not necessary to discuss a matter of the kind in this 
little work. It may not however be amiss to observe, 
that what the present age may have lost in accurate 
taste and in sublimity of composition by the discou- 
ragement of the drama, it has been more than com- 
pensated by the prevalence of the precepts of religion 
and morality. 

The markets are the next object worth drawing the 
attention of strangers. There was formerly but one 
market, which had been held from time immemorial in 
what is now called the Royal Square, and cattle were 
sold along the south wall of the outside of the Church- 
yard. The present market was erected by the States, 
and opened in 1803. There are now several markets, 
all of which are well supplied, and which have been 
subsequently opened at different times, — the vegetable 
and meat market, the fish market, the foreign provi- 
sions' market, the fair, or cattle market, and a market 
for pork and poultry, which has just been finished, and 
is the most roomy and elegant of all of them, with its 
principal entrance into Halkett Place. The whole of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 149 

the front of the market to Halkett Place has lately 
been decorated with a handsome iron balustrade. 

While we are on the subject of the markets, many 
of our fair readers will not be sorry to have an aver- 
age list of the prices of provisions. The Jersey 
pound is of sixteen ounces, but these are equal to 
seventeen and a-half Avoirdupoise weight. — All kinds 
of butcher's meat are from six-pence to seven- 
pence for the best cuts. From April to October, 
butter is on average from tenpence to one shilling 
and a penny per pound ; but from October to March, 
it may be averaged at from one shilling and a 
penny, to one shilling and threepence per pound. 
Eggs in the summer months are about fivepence per 
dozen, and in winter 7d. Milk is carried to the houses, 
a 2d. a-quart. Bread according to quality; but the 
best seldom exceeds l|d. and 2d. per pound. The 
island does not supply a sufficiency of corn, for its 
consumption, but the deficiency is made up by abun- 
dant importations from the North of Europe. Poultry 
mostly comes from France, and is very reasonable, a 
good goose from 2s. to 2s. 6d., and a turkey 5s. As to 
fruit and vegetables, they are abundant and cheap. That 
is also the case with fish, except at particular seasons. 
All kinds of groceries are not charged at half what 
they would cost in England. As to wines and spirits, 
the reduction is still more considerable. The very 
best Cognac Brandy, 7s. 6d. per gallon. Fine brandy 
3s. 6d. per gallon. Pure Hollands 3s. 6d. per gallon. 
Port Wine from 9s. to 18s. a dozen. — Finest Marsala, 
8s. a dozen. Fine Sherries from 12s. to £1 4s. per dozen. 
But wherefore all this enumeration of the finest wines 
to tantalize and irritate the thirst of many of our 



]50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

readers ? It is therefore best to conclude by recom- 
mending in the words of the Jersey, Wine, Spirit, and 
Porter Metropolitan Company, their superior Spark- 
ling Champaign, at 36s. a dozen.* 

The day was now far advanced, our travellers after 
strolling a little longer, and amusing themselves with 
a peep at the different fine shops in Halkett Place, 
returned to their lodgings with a keen appetite, for 
the gratification of which, they found a copious repast 
spread before them, which argued well in favour of the 
good cheer and the salubrity of the Channel Islands. 

* The dearth of the'present year has materially affected the 
prices of bread and of all hinds of market produce. It is hoped 
that this misfortune -will be but temporary. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

Early conversion of Jersey to Christianity. — St. Magloire. — 
Pretextatus.—St. Helier the hermit.— Old insular Chapels. 
— Consecration of the Parish Churches. — Episcopal Juris- 
diction. — St. Helier's Church. — Improvements of the 
Churchyard. — Monuments. — Maximilian Norreys. — Ger- 
trude Amy. — Major Peirson. — Be Rullecour. — Charles 
D'Auvergne. — Brigadier General Anquetil. — Eulogy of the 
late Dean Dupre. — His French translation of the Dying 
Christian to his Soul. 

After having finished the Visit of the Town of St. 
Helier, and called the attention of the reader to some 
of the most prominent objects of interest or curiosity, 
we may conclude by devoting a few pages to the 
examination of the venerable Town Church of St. 
Helier, and of other edifices, which have been erected 
for the w r orship of God, as the wealth, the population, 
and the resources of the island increased. 

The conversion of the Channel Islands to the Chris- 
tian faith is of a very ancient dale, and is most probably 
of a period anterior to the subversion of the Roman 
Empire in Gaul. It cannot be that Christianity should 
have spread through every part of the Empire, that a 
long list of martyrs, and of Christian writers should 
have flourished, and that it should have been the religion 
of the State and of the emperors, without its beneficial 
influence having extended to the coasts of Gaul, and to 
the islands of the neighbouring Ocean. It is barely 



152 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

possible that its progress might have been slow in 
those remote dependencies, and that a great part of 
the Druidical superstitions of the country might have 
remained. It is also not unlikely that the confusion 
occasioned by the invasions of the northern barbarians 
who overwhelmed the Roman Empire, might have 
eradicated much of the good seed, which had been 
sown in former ages ; but it could not have been a 
complete subversion of the true religion, nor could 
it have effected a general restoration of paganism. 

After the establishment of the Franks in Gaul, things 
continued in that state till the end of the sixth century. 
It was then that the primitive Christians, who had 
formerly found an asylum in Wales, in Cornwall, and 
in Ireland returned to reconvert Armorica, and the ad- 
joining provinces of the Continent. Great numbers of 
the laity, were then flying from Britain from the 
ravages of the Saxons into Armorica, where they 
founded a new country, and gave it the name of the 
land of their forefathers. They were accompanied in 
their exile by several of the clergy, who carried before 
them the blessings of peace and civilisation to the be- 
nighted tribes of the earth. This accounts for so many 
British names of Saints being still to be found in the 
names of families, and of parishes, such as Pengelly, 
Tremalga, Trehonnais, St.Ouen, St. Samson, St. Budoc, 
St. Brieu, and Dinan. Some of those holy men settled 
in Jersey, and were abundantly successful in their 
mission. The honor of evangelising the Channel Is- 
lands belongs to St. Magloire, who had succeeded St. 
Samson in the see of Dol, which he resigned soon 
after, that he might devote himself to contemplation and 
to the propagation of the Gospel. He founded a con- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. . 153 

vent in the Isle of Sark, and then came over to Jersey, 
where he settled and built a small chapel, near the 
site of the present Grammar School of St. Manlier. 
There he closed his mortal career in peace amid the 
blessings of a grateful and religious people. Sixty- 
years after his death his body was removed by one of 
the Armorican princes to the Abbey of Lihou, near 
Dinan in Britany, where it remained till the invasions 
of the Normans. It was then finally transferred to 
Paris, where it gave its name to the splendid church 
of St. Bartholomew, and St. Magloire. 

The generous efforts of that holy man were after- 
wards more fully developed by Pretextatus, who spent 
the last ten years of his life in Jersey. He had been 
Archbishop of Rouen in Neustria, from which he had 
been ejected through the violence, and the intrigues 
of Fredegunda, the Queen of Chilperic, one of the 
Kings of France. At last he was recalled to resume 
his high office, but he did not enjoy it long. The 
Queen sent an assassin, who cruelly murdered him in 
his church ; the memory of the victim, was subsequently 
honoured as that of a martyr. 

Another Christian Worthy, of a somewhat more 
recent period, was St. Helier, the holy Hermit, and 
afterwards the patron saint of the town, which bears 
his name. There have been some doubts raised about 
the identity of that holy martyr, and some having pre- 
tended, that it was the same person as St. Hilary, the 
Bishop of Poictiers, while others have sought to iden- 
tify him with one of the companions of St. Marcou, 
the apostle of the peninsula of the Cotentin of which 
Jersey forms a part. Mr. Falle, the historian of 
Jersey, shows the futility of the former opinion, 



154 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and though the latter is supported by the authority 
of M. De Gerville of Valognes, one of most cele- 
brated antiquaries in France, I cannot persuade my- 
self that his views are accurate. " St. Helier, " 
says he ff n'etait pas un hermite venu a Jersey, pour 
** se cacher dans le creux d'un rocher, c'etait un des 
"compagnons de St. Mareouf, apotre du Cotentin, 
K dont Jersey faisait partie. II animait la mission 
" de St. Magloire comme Pretextat la consomm6e." 

There is no proof that St. Helier was not a hermit, 
and a martyr, as he has been represented by the con- 
stant tradition of so many ages, nor is there anything 
in the legend to render it improbable. He chose the 
hollow of a rock for his seclusion, and the broad ex- 
panse of heaven for contemplation, circumstances, 
which have always formed the favourite objects of the 
warm and enthusiastic mind. The same eccentricity 
exists even now, though it may show itself in many 
different ways. "We may then easily conceive that St 
Helier was one of those vigorous spirits, who wished 
to acquire a character for extraordinary sanctity, and 
thought that the most effectual way to obtain it was 
by the privations of solitude, and penance. 

We may therefore assume that St. Helier, was a native 
of Jersey, and that he devoted himself to an ascetic 
course of life, which by its very singularity attracts 
the notice of the vulgar ; and that his Christian forti- 
tude was further exposed to the bitter trial of falling 
into the hands of the Norman pagans, who mercilessly 
put him to death. His constancy in the faith, and his 
undaunted courage in suffering, excited the sympathy 
and the admiration of his countrymen, who raised his 
memory to that of a martyr, and a saint. There is no. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 155 

need to have recourse to either extraordinary virtue or 
talents. Any ordinary person, whose life had been so 
blameless, and his end so edifying, would anywhere 
be equally respected, and his memory not soon for- 
gotten. This brings us to the building of a church, as 
near as could be to the seat of St. Helier's martyrdom ; 
which piety placed under his invocation. 

It is well known that St. Helier is reported to have 
been the last built of the twelve parish churches in 
Jersey. For several ages after its conversion, the island 
was covered with a great number of small and unim- 
portant Chapels. At a subsequent period the Island 
was divided into parishes, and the small chapels have 
gradually disappeared, till at present that in St. Bre- 
lade's Churchyard is the only one remaining. There 
is a list of dates of the consecrations of the different 
churches in Jersey, which are implicitly copied from 
one publication into another. Those dates are very 
ancient, and ma y be correet, but they are not extracted 
from the Livre Noir de Coutances, as commonly re- 
ported. That book was compiled in 1274, and the 
church of St. Helier, was not consecrated till 1341. 
M. De Gerviile already mentioned, speaking of the 
" Livre Noir," says : — "Ma copie que j'ai eu tout le 
" t emps de copier ; — L'ecriture en est tres lisible. Je 
" puis certifier que dans ce Cartulaire il n'y a pas un 
" mot des pretendues consecrations des Eglises de 
" Jersey, ni de celles de Guernesey, ni des pretendus 
" Eveques consacrant. Les Ev6ques d'Avranches 
" avaient des dimes et fiefs dans toutes les isles, mais 
"il n'y eurent jamais de jurisdiction episcopate." 
After this testimony very little importance can be 
attached to that list of dates and consecrations. 



156 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

This is the place to say something of the episcopal 
jurisdiction established in these islands. They were 
annexed to Winchester by an Order of Elizabeth in 
1565. This had been done before by a pretended Bull 
of Pope Alexander VI., in 1499. It is plain however 
that that Bull was never executed, and that arguments 
preponderate to induce a belief, that it was a fabrica- 
tion of a date subsequent to the Reformation. The 
jurisdiction of the bishop of Winchester exists in fact, 
but the Catholics pretend, that no temporal authority, 
has a right to alter the limits of any diocese, and that 
even granting the Bull of Alexander VI., to be forged, 
the Bishop of Coutances still retains a dormant jurisdic- 
tion over the islands. So late as the close of the last 
century, that Bishop appointed a vicar general for 
Jersey. At present however, the spiritual concerns of 
the Catholics in the Channel Islands are administered 
by their Bishop of London ; but this is rather as a 
matter of mutual convenience, than as affecting the 
strict point of right. 

The Church of St. Helier, has nothing to recommend 
it in point of architecture, or of situation. It is a 
plain and unassuming edifice, in character with the 
simplicity of the times, and the scanty resources of the 
island, when it was erected. Like many other old 
buildings of the kind, it has received many additions, 
and pretended improvements, which have disfigured 
it, and given it an appearance so totally different from 
the humility of its general plan. It has been some- 
times contemplated to rebuild it, but that would meet 
with serious objections, on account of the expence, and 
be cause it would interfere with the graves and occasion 
the destruction of many of the monuments. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OP JERSEY. 15*7 

Another circumstance, which adds to the celebrity 
of a Christian Church, is when it has been the theatre of 
some great event, or when it contains the ashes of men, 
who had been eminent for their virtues. Except the mar- 
tyrdom of its venerated patron and the high respect spon- 
taneously paid to such unyielding virtue, the Church of 
St. Helier, has nothing historical to recommend it to 
particular observation. The inside of the church has 
an awkward and grotesque appearance from an absurd 
affectation of modern ornaments and improvements. 
The churchyard having become inconveniently crowded 
with human remains, it was closed in 1827, and another 
supplied by the parish in its place. The stones and 
monuments, were left standing, and consigned to the 
slowly wasting effects of time. After a lapse of twenty 
years, a great part of them has already crumbled to 
pieces, and most of the inscriptions on the stones are 
becoming illegible. The churchyard has however just 
undergone a thorough embellishment, and is likely to 
be made a more attractive spot, than could have ever 
been expected. It is intersected by a wide gravel 
walk, that runs all round the church, and the high 
circular blind wall, which formerly concealed it from 
the street, has been removed, to be replaced by an 
elegant, and massive iron balustrade. It is the work 
of Mr. Joseph Le Rossignol, a native artist, whose 
good taste and mechanical talent do honour to the 
island. 

The Church has a great number of monuments, but 
some of them are for individuals, who had no other 
claims to remembrance than the gratitude of their 
executors to inscribe their names on marble. There 
are however gome distinguished exceptions, one of 



158 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Maximilian Norreys of Ryecote, near Oxford, and the 
other of Gertrude Enys, of Enys, near Truro, in Corn- 
wall, who died here in child bed in 1647. The in- 
scriptions on those monuments have been copied in the 
last edition of Falle's History, page 349. 

There is another monument which no visitor either 
a native or stranger can ever approach but with feelings 
of the most profound admiration, and the liveliest sym- 
pathy. The gratitude of the States of the island 
caused a monument to be erected at the public expense 
to the memory of Major Peirson, that gallant officer, 
who so essentially contributed to their liberation from 
a French invasion. The monument, is ornamented 
with very appropriate sculptures, which came from the 
chisel of the elder Bacon, who died in 1798. There 
is also a very neat and elegant inscription, giving a 
concise but energetic account of the fall of the young 
hero. 

It is seldom that the fall of an officer not higher in 
rank than Major Peirson, has excited such a general 
sensation. This was owing to many causes j the sym- 
pathy for the glorious fall of one so young, for the 
peculiarly embarrassing circumstances under w-hich 
he was placed, and for the permanent consequences, 
which resulted from his victory. Cold indeed must be 
that heart, that is not warmed to something like rap- 
ture, when it reflects, that even at this moment, the 
inhabitants of Jersey are indebted to his heroism, that 
they are British subjects, and that in that quality they 
enjoy so many religious and political blessings. If the 
French had then obtained possession of the island, it 
is very doubtful, whether it would have been restored 
on the return of peace, or whether it would have been 
ever again wrested from that pow T er. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 159 

The Baron de Rullecour, who commanded the French 
invasion, was buried in St. Helier's Churchyard, in 
front of the place, where now stands the monument of 
the late Nicholas Fiott, Esq., at about four or five yards 
distance, and opposite the great western door of the 
Church. Rullecour, is said to have been a tall and 
stout middle aged man. 

Beneath the monument of Peirson, there is another 

of a more humble description, raised to the memory of 

the late Charles D'Auvergne, Esq., a native of this 

island, and claiming attention from his having been 

the father of the late Philip D'Auvergne, Esq., and 

Admiral in the British Navy, and Duke of Bouillon, 

in the Netherlands. His Serene Highness was one of 

those few men, whose enlarged views, and whose 

exalted character reflected the highest honour on his 

country. Brave, disinterested, and beneficent, he was 

ever ready to patronize the deserving, or to relieve the 

unfortunate. The close of his career was however 

chequered by misfortune and ingratitude. He died in 

London, in 1816. — But his countrymen. 

Ploravere suis non respondere favorem. 
Speratum meritis. Horace* 

There are several other monuments the sculpture of 
which will please and interest the visitor. — But pass 
we over them to approach with reverential awe a hum- 
ble cenotaph dedicated to the memory of the late 
brave and unfortunate Brigadier General Anquetil, who 
perished with his army, in the disastrous retreat from 
Cabul, in 1842. That distinguished officer was a 
native of this island, and the modest tablet consecrated 
to his fame, has been at the expense of the late Mr. 
Anquetil, an affectionate relation, who was not even 



160 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

his heir. It is in some sort a reflection on the States 
of this island, that when they have yearly some thou- 
sands at their disposal, they have not yet found some 
moderate sum to be laid out in bestowing a suitable 
monument to honour the memory of a lamented native 
and a gallant soldier. 

Not thus have acted our neighbours on the opposite 
coast in the city of Avranches. One of their fellow 
townsmen General Valhubert, was slain in one of the 
battles of Napoleon in Poland. A colossal statue was 
erected by the emperor to his memory, and it now 
forms one of the principal ornaments that decorate his 
native place. This lesson given by rivals, neighbours, 
and foreigners, ought to be understood by the States, 
as a gentle hint to do something of the kind them- 
selves. 

The late Dr. Edward Dupre, sometime dean of this 
island, died in 1823, and lies buried in the churchyard,- 
but no monument has been raised to him either there or 
in the church. That Reverend gentleman was at once 
an elegant scholar, a poet, an eloquent preacher, and on 
the whole one of the most talented men that the 
Channel Islands ever produced. He was the tran- 
slator of Popes' Dying Christian to his Soul, into 
French, and it is the best version of it, which has 
ever appeared in that language. It has been often 
printed in French collections of Psalms and hymns. 
It is very remarkable that it was selected for the 
anthem, sung at his own funeral. That circumstance 
made it doubly impressive, when applied to its la- 
mented translator, and the effect it seemed to produce 
on the numerous assembly who attended on that melan- 
choly occasion, has never been obliterated from the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 161 

recollection of him, who writes this article, and who 
then witnessed that imposing ceremony. We close 
our observations with a copy of that translation, to 
which we subjoin another of the same in Latin Alcaics 
from the pen of the Rev. Edward Durell, A.M., Rector 
of St. Saviour's, Jersey. * 

i. 

Feu sacr6, pure Etincelle, 
Sors de ta loge mortelle ; 

Entre la crainte et le desir, 
O joie, 6 douleur de mourir ; 
Gessez, angoisse, agonie ; 

Je meurs pour renaitre a la vie . 

II. 

Entends les Anges Des Cieux 

Leur douce voix te reclame ; 
Viens, chere Sceur, en ces lieux ! 

Ah que sens-je ? je me pame ! 
Mes sens. — Tout en moi s'endort. — 
Dis-moi, mon Ame, est-ce la mort ? 

ill, 

Le monde s'enfuit, se retire ! 
Les Esprits Divins de leur lyre 

Font retentir le son. 
Je pars, je m'elance a la gloire. 
O sepulchre, on est ta victoire ? 

Mort, on est ton aiguillon ? 



Christianus Moriens ad Animam, 

Ex Popio Lating versus. — Auctore Edvardo Durell, A.M. 



* Le Chritien mourant d son Ame, translated from the 
Dying Christian to his Soul of Pope by the late Very Rev. 
Dr. Edward Dupre, sometime Dean of Jersey, 



162 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

O Tu, mei Pars , et Genus jEtberis, 
Sedem relinquens corporis, hine fuge, 
Ignava, pallens, et morando 
Debilior, metuensque mortis. 

O quantus augor ! quamque mori jurat 
Natura, motus sed cohibe graves, 
Ut liber ex omni tumultu, 
Dulce fruar meliore vita. 



Audin' vocantes Te Superum Choros 
Leni susurro ? " Cara Soror, veni, 

" Qua blanda terrarum relicto 

" Te vocatexilio voluptas." 

Quid sensibus me languidioribus 
Solvit ? Quid ffiger spiritus it foras ? 
Clausique caligant ocelli ? — 
Nonne fateris id esse mortem ? — 

Terrae recedunt, dumque abeunt procul, 
Immensa Ca^li lux aperit domos, 
Auresque mulcentur per astbram 
Tot resonare lyras Piorum. 

Vestrum quis alas commodat, et regit 
Cursum volando ? — jam citius vebor. — 
O Mors, quid ultra vim moraris ? 
O Roge, quo tibi abit triumphus 1 

EDVARDUS DURELL. 

VU. Id. Jun„ M.DCCCXL. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Burial Grounds of St. Helier. — New Rectory House. — Church 
of England Chapels. — St. Pauls. — Si. James. — St. Marks. 
— All Saints. — Dissenting Chapels. — Roman Catholic Cha- 
pels. — Sir Colin HalkeWs Road of Communication. 

After having left the church and its more immediate 
precincts, we are naturally led to inquire for the bury- 
ing grounds substituted to the ancient churchyard. 
There are two, both of which are sufficiently spacious ; 
the former at the eastern end of the town for the 
parishioners principally, and the latter at its western 
extremity, where the greater part of indigent strangers, 
and other poor persons are generally buried. 

The Rectory house was formerly adjoining to the 
Churchyard wall, but the situation having been found 
confined and disagreeable, it was sold a few years ago 
by the competent authorities, and another good sub- 
stantial modern dwelling, has been built on ground 
belonging to the living near St. Mark's Chapel. The 
changes, which have resulted from those causes, are 
understood to have been highly advantageous to the 
benefice. 

The mother church, having through the increase of 
population become insufficient to accommodate its con- 
gregation, several Church of England Chapels have 
arisen in different parts of the town. Most of these 
have been built by shares, and subscriptions, the 
holders of which cannot fail to have been influenced 



164 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

by a becoming regard to the per centage to be derived 
for their money, as in any other trading concern. It 
is supposed that those chapels make in the first place 
a competent allowance for their ministers, and for 
other incidental expenses. The remainder is then left 
as a disposable fund, to b6 distributed in their pro- 
portions among the shareholders. 

St. Pauls' in New Street, is the oldest of those 
Chapels, having been built in 1816. It occasioned an 
opposition of some years from the ecclesiastical autho- 
rities, but the Chapel Trustees, finally triumphed, or at 
least tired out their adversaries. The service of the 
Church of England has always been regularly per- 
formed in that Chapel, but to this day it remains un- 
consecrated. The Proprietors present their minister 
who is now understood to be for life. 

St. James, at the east, and most fashionable end of 
the town, was built in 1827, the property of which was 
also invested among shareholders, with this exception 
however, that matters were amicably arranged with 
the rector, and that no interruptions were given to 
counteract the good work intended to be effected by 
that holy edifice. The chapel is at this moment highly 
flourishing, and is the largest and the handsomest place 
of worship belonging to the Church of England in 
Jersey. 

St. Mark's Chapel, or rather Church, has not been 
built more than two or three years, and is almost con- 
tiguous to the new Kectory. It has also been built on 
the share holding system , which strangely connects 
the letting of pews with the prosperity of a chapel, 
and ludicrously enough introduces the daily puposes of 
trade into the sacred and disinterested concerns of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 165 

religion. The rector of St. Helier nominates the 
minister. 

All Saints, so called from having been erected on an 
ancient burying ground, is by far the smallest of those 
Chapels. It is a Chapel of ease to the Church of St. 
Helier, whose rector also nominates the minister. It 
is a neat and elegant little building. It differs from 
the other Chapels, in that it was entirely built by pri- 
vate subscription, except a grant of £200, which it 
received from the States. Its erection cost about 
£1000. After deducting the necessary expenses, the 
rent of the pews belongs to the minister. The late Dr. 
Hue, Dean of Jersey gave £500 about twelve years ago 
to accumulate in trust, till it would amount at compound 
interest to £50 a-year, towards forming an endow- 
ment for the minister. He is appointed by the Rector. 

There are other chapels belonging to several sects 
of dissenters as well as two belonging to the Catholics. 
Some of these have numerous congregations especially 
the Wesleyans, and the Catholics. 

It is only of late years that there have been any 
Roman Catholic Chapels in Jersey. The first stone 
of the English one, was not laid till the autumn of 
1841. It is a large and beautiful chapel, in point of 
architecture, and its external and internal decorations 
may compete with any other place of worship in the 
island. It is supported almost entirely by the Catholic 
English and Irish residents, the lower class of the 
latter of whom are very numerous. It has been dedi- 
cated to St. Mary, and as well as the French Catholic 
Chapel, is under the spiritual administration of the 
Catholic Bishop of London. The Rev. Mr. Cuning- 
ham is the officiating priest. 



166 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

About the same time an unsuccessful Anabaptist 
Chapel in New Street having been offered for sale, it 
was purchased by the French Catholics, who having 
fitted it up according to their views gave it the name 
of St. Thomas. There are but few resident French 
Catholics, either of note or property, the greater part 
of them consisting principally of the humble and 
laborious class employed in procuring supplies of pro- 
visions for the markets. Be it said to their credit, that 
they are a quiet, sober, and parcimonious people, and 
seldom implicated in any of those offences, which so 
often bring the stranger from other countries in trouble. 
This chapel from the general poverty of its congrega- 
tion is supposed not to be in affluent circumstances, 
and it is probable that the funds required about £1000 
for its purchase, and for its adaptation to the Roman 
Catholic worship. These were supplied by the libe- 
rality of some unknown private benefactors. 

There is a Chapel in lower Halkett Place, belonging 
to the independents. It is the property of the Rev. 
Francis Perrot, who for some time has retired from ill 
health, and is now replaced by his brother the Rev. 
Clement Perrot, an elegant writer, and a most eloquent 
preacher. — There are several other chapels in St. 
Helier as well as others scattered over the island ; but 
of too little importance to attract the notice of the 
stranger. 

The last thing that we shall notice about St. Helier 
is the military road of communication, which Lieute- 
nant-Governor Sir Colin Halkett, caused to be made 
about twenty years ago. That able officer planned this 
road for marching troops, and conveying artillery be- 
tween the eastern and western divisions of the island, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 167 

without being obliged to march through the town. 
Another use was also intended, that in case the enemy 
should effect a landing, the retreating army might 
occupy that road, and form a cordon round St. Helier, 
which would effectually preserve it from being taken 
by surprise. This road begins at the eastern extremity 
of the town, near Plaisance, a gentleman's seat, then 
joins near St. James Chapel, the St. Saviour's Road, 
which it follows till Quatre Bras, where it strikes into 
the Trinity Road, after which keeping a westerly 
direction, and passing the village of Rouge Bouillon, 
it is carried across to meet the St. John's Road. It 
then descends rapidly into the suburbs of the town, 
and terminates where it joins the St. Aubin's Road, at 
a place commonly called Cheapside. 

Sir Colin Halkett, had left this road unfinished from 
Plaisance to the sea in the Greve dAzette. The com- 
pletion of that road has just been ordered by the States 
at a considerable expense, and will most likely be 
thrown open to the public, in the course of the present 
year. 



THE PICTURESQUE GUIDE TO JERSEY, Ac. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. — Sir Walter Raleigh's Government of Jersey. 
— Dr. Hooper, and the Climate. — Its equability. — General 
salubrity. — Exceptions. — Immoderate use of Spirituous 
Liquors. — High seasoned food. — The Cholera. — Jersey 
Farm-houses. — The Poor's-rate. — The Feudal System. — 
Old Roads. — Official Visit of the Roads. — Timber and 
Corn Trade. 

After having given our travellers a succinct Historical 
Sketch of the Island, and a description of the present 
state of the Town, it now remains for us to conduct 
them into a few of the most interesting parts of the 
country. It is not to be expected, that a work of this 
kind can present much originality ; the most that any 
new writer can do is to present scenes already well- 
known in a more striking and attractive view, and to 
take notice of any changes, or improvements, which 
have been effected by the general progress of civiliza- 
tion, and the various favourable circumstances under 
which Jersey has been placed in modern times. It 
may be said to have remained nearly stationary from 
the reign of King John, in 1200, till the government 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 1G9 

of Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1601, the summer of which, 
he spent in Jersey, when, according to some memorials 
of his residence preserved in the proceedings of the 
insular States of that period, his administration was 
particularly active. The administration of that great 
and injured man was short, and his life belongs more to 
the History of England, than to ourselves ; still it is 
with some sort of conscious pride, that the Jerseymen 
of the present, day, reckon Sir Walter Raleigh among 
the list of their Governors. From that period the 
island began to improve. — Its final conformity to the 
Church of England, was in the latter part of the reign 
of James I, and was favourable to the island, whose 
very misfortunes under Charles I, and the Protectorate, 
enlarged its intercourse with England. The subse- 
quent wars with France, under the latter Bourbons, 
gradually developed its importance to Great Britain, 
and essentially contributed to the xvelfare of its in- 
habitants. For a true account of Jersey during that 
period, we refer the English reader to the Rev. Mr. 
Falle's history, and to his copious commentator, the 
Rev. Edward Durell. It is, however, since the French 
Revolution, in 1789, that the island has made such 
rapid strides in the scale of improvement, that not a 
year seems to have elapsed, without some signal in- 
crease in its prosperity, Well might M. Luchet, a 
literary foreigner, and a recent writer on Jersey, ex- 
claim " That every thing seemed to be new, and to 
have been created within the last fifty years." 

In giving a sketch, of the rural parts of the island, 
we shall have recourse to the best local authorities, 
particularly to the late Edition of Falle's History, 
to Mr. Ouless' Scenic Beauties, and to the recently pub- 



170 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

lished Souvenirs de Jersey, by M. Luchet, a man, long 
distinguished for the brilliancy of his talents on a 
larger sphere, before the iron hand of judicial severity, 
had compelled him to seek for an asylum on our hos- 
pitable shores. 

Before we enter upon our excursions through this 
beautiful island, it will be proper to say something 
about its climate. For the substance of our observa- 
tions on this head, we are indebted to Dr. Hooper, a 
native of this island, and one of its respectable practi- 
tioners. That gentleman distinguished himself during 
the prevalence of the Cholera here, in 1832, and pub- 
lished an account of it afterwards. 

The climate of Jersey owing to its situation, and to 
its small extent, is remarkably mild, but for the same 
reasons, it is also very damp. It has, therefore, been 
properly observed, that there will always be a nearer 
approach to an equality of temperature in a small 
island, than on the coasts of any neighbouring con- 
tinent. The heat in Jersey never rises very high, and 
it is but seldom that it descends below the freezing 
point. It is, therefore, very seldom that the winter is 
attended with any very severe falls of snow, or with 
any continued frosts, and the summer is as rarely 
parched up with droughts. Nowhere does nature 
present a milder climate, and nowhere do the seasons 
afford a greater number of days, with the equable 
temperature of spring. The mildness of the climate of 
Jersey, bears some anology to that of the West of 
England, whose coasts forming a peninsula, have the 
advantage of being placed between the British and tne 
Bristol Channels. That is particularly the case with 
Penzance the most westerly town in Britain, where 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 171 

laurels and myrtles thrive in the open air all the year 
round, and where geraniums and other exotics may 
remain exposed to the weather as under the genial 
suns of the South of Europe. The spring however in 
Jersey is a little warmer, and the winter rather less 
cold, than in that favoured part of England, which is 
situated in almost the same latitude. The progress of 
the two seasons here, is therefore more perceptible, 
and better regulated. As to our neighbours on the 
coast of France, there is nothing in their climate 
which can compete with those advantages. But not- 
withstanding the dampness of the atmosphere of this 
happy isle, it has a great counteracting evil, in the 
north east wind, which coming over a vast extent of 
land, impregnated with the ice and snows of Siberia, 
prevails during the months of March and April, and 
is productive of serious injury to the earlier fruit trees. 
It is keen and withering, causes a disagreeable sensa- 
tion of chilliness, that contracts and dries up the skin. 
It may be said, indeed, to be the only inconvenience 
of that fine climate. The winter may be tiresome 
from its monotony, because it does not exhibit 
some of those phenomena of nature, which are so 
strikingly displayed in other regions, but it does not 
last long, and its appearance after autumn, is soft- 
ened down again into spring, as it were, unper- 
ceived. In December the trees still retain a portion 
of their verdure, and in the March following, there is 
already a renewal of vegetation. The old way of not 
beginning the new year till the end of March, setting 
aside all astronomical reasons for the present practice, 
was the best adapted, at least, to European latitudes. 
Beginning the year with the 1st of January, is to make 



172 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

winter the first of the seasons, when it ought to be the 
last, which is preposperous, and contrary to the acknow- 
ledged analogy, which it bears to the exhausted func- 
tions of Nature, and to the decrepitude of Man. 

The climate of Jersey is, therefore, delightful for 
nine or ten months in the year. Even the temperature 
of the winter months has nothing dangerous, or even 
inconvenient, provided one takes but the ordinary pre- 
cautions, which are necessary to be taken everywhere, 
by the sick and the convalescent against all violent 
and sudden changes in the temperature. It is on that 
account, that a residence here is so strongly recom- 
mended by the medical advisers of patients, labouring 
under chronical affections, as that very mildness of the 
air, which might perhaps be too soft for persons in 
perfect health, wonderfully co-operates in the former 
case, with the efforts of nature and of art. That is a 
quality, which our climate participates in common, 
and to a certain extent, with the warmer parts of 
Europe. It is also the same with the rearing of some 
tropical plants, which in England cannot be raised but 
in a hot-house, but in Jersey will thrive in common 
green-houses, and may afterwards be transplanted in 
the open air. The climate is also particularly well 
adapted to the residence of invalids, who have returned 
from the East or West Indies. The transition is not 
so great for them, as returning at once to the cold 
climate of England, and there is no doubt, that 
many very valuable lives have been preserved by a 
temporary residence in Jersey, till such time as they 
could be seasoned to encounter without danger the 
cold and humid atmosphere of their native land. 

We must not, however, suppose that the salubrity of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 173 

Jersey exempts it from the frequency of diseases. The 
mortality among children and young persons is con- 
siderable. Rheumatic pains, affections of the lungs, 
and disorders of the digestive organs, are unhappily 
but too prevalent. But it would be unfair to suppose, 
that such a long catalogue of evils, should be attributed 
to the climate. Many causes, however, might be 
assigned as giving cause to the developement of those 
diseases, which it is unnecessary any more than to 
indicate in a work of this kind. What strikes strangers 
on their first arrival, is the absurd manner in which 
young children are reared, sometimes with too much, 
and sometimes with too little clothing, and by alter- 
nately exposing them to the extremes of heat and cold. 
Among the children of the higher classes too much in- 
dulgence in their meat and drink is often fatal, or else 
it generates complaints, which lay foundations of irre- 
mediable evils in after life. It is true that many do 
not seem to be affected by this defective training, but 
it is to be attributed to the native vigour of their con- 
stitution, which overcomes those obstacles. In the 
country, children among the lower classes are brought 
up to premature and excessive labour, which is often 
fatal, or the insufficiency of good and wholesome food, 
makes them incapable of ever arriving at their full 
growth and strength. 

Another cause of disease, and perhaps the greatest 
of all in the Channel Islands, arises from the immo- 
derate use of spirituous liquors. It is true that this 
evil is mostly prevalent among the lower classes, but 
the evil is neither the less serious, nor the less danger- 
ous on that account. The taste for spirits is very 
evident in the town from the great number of public 



174 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

houses, whose glittering ensigns stare in the unwary 
stranger's face. The cheapness of spirits enables 
the labourer to form habits of intemperance, which 
soon exhaust his little earnings, to the destruction of 
his own comforts and to the ruin and starvation of his 
own family. That manner of life carries its punish- 
ment along with it, by the inevitable loss of health, 
and that tremulous stupid sottishness, which is the 
forerunner of death. 

The better educated and more easy classes are dis- 
gusted with such beastly habits, and it requires no 
effort in them to avoid them; but are they themselves 
less liable to even greater reprehension ? What those 
wretches have swallowed in strong stimulants, they 
sip up in small glasses, and at a greater expence, in 
the long list of luscious beverages. 

Another fruitful source of disease in Jersey is owing 
to the large quantity of pepper, and of other hot spices, 
which are consumed in cookery. M. Luchet, observes 
that Jersey, consumes more pepper, cinnamon, nut- 
megs, and ginger, than all Paris. 

The abuse in the selection of a wholesome diet, is 
closely followed by a perversion of the resources of 
medicine. After having past a day of twelve hours in 
concocting some indigestible food or other, the next 
morning is spent in getting rid of it by gentle opera- 
tives. Hence the Chemist becomes almost as indispen- 
sable to the existence of the lounger, as the pastry- 
cook ; for the number of pills, which some of those 
gentlemen swallow in the course of the year is almost 
innumerable. Every chemist prepares medicines, and 
when we say that he does it, we mean,that he not only 
practises it, but that on an emergency, he can also 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 175 

Invent new medecines to suit the taste of his cus- 
tomers. From such a taste, however, exclaims sar- 
castically the ingenious M. Luchet, the Lord deliver 
us though me find fault with nobody I 

Notwithstanding these several exceptions, one may 
safely assert that the island has no diseases, which are 
endemial to it, and that it affords a most salubrious 
place of residence. After having ravaged several 
other parts of Europe, the cholera appeared there also 
in the summer of 1832; but it did not rage with any 
particular violence, and the cases mostly occurred 
among the indigent and intemperate strangers, the ill- 
fed, and the ill-clad, without a comfortable, or a per- 
manent home. 

The moisture of the soil, which might be dangerous 
in other places, is not so in Jersey, where it is absorbed 
by the high state of cultivation, and leaves no super- 
fluous matter to be exhaled in noxious effluvia. This 
is apparent at the very first glance, for never did a 
country present a finer picture of rural happiness or 
of general health. This fine country is interspersed 
with gentlemen's seats, farm-houses, and cottages in 
every direction. These, for the most part, have neither 
the ostentation of splendour, nor the mean depression of 
poverty. Let the tourist have but the curiosity to 
enter the farm-house of one of the respectable yeomen 
who inhabits it. He will be received with the cordial 
welcome and the simplicity of the Jerseymen of the 
good olden times. He will find the parlour fitted up 
with neat chairs, carpet, tables, and perhaps even with 
a pianoforte, as at St. Helier's. The kitchen too, 
though a less showy apartment, has also its luxury in 
the profusion of its conveniences. Everything shines 
Q 



176 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and has an ah- of satisfaction, and the eye as well as 
the mind dwell with pleasure at the sight, of the 
parents and the children, and even on their domestic 
animals. The dress of the family is neat, but plain, 
and betrays no symptoms either of poverty or of sloven- 
liness. 

The feudal system still exists, but it is little more 
than nominal, and is dwindled down to be merely a 
certain description of private property. Those who 
are accustomed to the sight of the highest wealth con- 
trasted with the most abject wretchedness as they are 
exhibited in large countries, would in vain look for the 
same in Jersey. Freedom and industry, have raised the 
great mass of the people above those mean circum- 
stances, the cottage, which the Jerseyman inha- 
bits, is generally his own freehold, which the great 
sub-division of property, and the laws of the country, 
have given him particular faculties to acquire. It is 
not, however, that there are no paupers in Jersey, but 
that the number of them is comparatively rare, and 
confined to unavoidable misfortune, to the helplessness 
of infancy, or to the decrepitude of age. It is true that 
a heavy poor's-rate is yearly raised, to which every 
freeholder is assessed according to his means ; a large 
proportion of that rate, however, is absorbed in the 
relief of destitute strangers, who have no settlement 
in any of the insular parishes, and must be sent back to 
their own parishes, or be maintained at the charge of 
the public. 

Before we begin our Tour, it is right to say some- 
thing about the roads. These are the ancient innu- 
merable bye-roads aud lanes, which lead into every 
part of the island, and present inextricable labyrinths 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 177 

even to those natives, who are not perfectly acquainted 
with them. We would not therefore advise any 
stranger to entangle himself into any of those inex- 
tricable paths, without a guide, however alluring, they 
may be in point of shade, of seclusion and of rural 
scenery. One might be inclined if fanciful to imagine, 
that those bye-roads had been formed either to bewilder 
pirates attempting to penetrate into the interior or 
to check the advance of French invaders at some 
distant period. Those roads are repaired by a statute 
duty as in England, to which every person is more, or 
less liable, according to the value of his property. 
They are subject to a high official visit, once a year at 
Midsummer, by the Jurats of the Eoyal Court, in the 
name of the Sovereign, and attended by the Viscount 
or High Sheriff. As this visit is attended with much 
unnecessary parade, and closes with a good dinner at 
the expense of the Crown, its usefulness has some- 
times been questioned, or treated with illiberal ridi- 
cule. Dr. Shebbeare, one of the historians of Jersey, 
has a witty passage about it, which has often been 
quoted, in which he says, that the Viscount makes a 
solemn visit of those roads in the name of His Majesty, 
attended by the Jurats, the Constables and their suite, 
mounted as he wittily expresses it, on his " viscountal 
horse with his viscountal staff of office, perpendicularly 
erected on the pummel of his viscountal saddle. 

The plain meaning is, that the sheriff carries a rod 
of a certain length on the pummel of his saddle, and 
that every branch that touches it, and obstructs the 
free circulation of air into the narrow road, is ordered 
to be cut, and the owner is subjected to a small fine. 
Certainly, there is nothing either ludicrous or unbe- 



178 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

coming in the procession. The clanger of incurring 
the fine has, however, considerably diminished of late 
years, by the indiscriminate levelling of hedge rows, and 
the destruction of timber. That is done, as it is said, 
to throw the ground more open, and to render it more 
favourable for the growth of corn ; though by a strange 
anomaly, the home consnmption of Jersey is supplied 
from the Baltic. It is always an injury to any country 
to deprive it of too much of its wood, as it is a loss 
which can be effected in a few hours, but cannot be 
repaired but by the slow and progressive lapse of years. 
It is sacrificing too much to the produce of grain, and 
it is, therefore, an error. The soil of Jersey is adapted 
to the cultivation of fruits, and of vegetables ; for nature 
formed there a garden, and not an arable district. 

The fact is, however, that the Channel Islands have 
the privilege of exporting their corn to England duty 
free, to be sold there again at the current price. 
These exportations, however, do not amount to any 
large quantity. The Jersey corn w ould not suffice for 
one fourth of what is needed for its home consumption, 
which is made up from the Baltic, and from other 
countries, which can supply that commodity at a cheaper 
rate. The English farmers took umbrage at this pri- 
vilege, and endeavoured to induce Parliament to annul 
that privilege in 1835. They failed, however, and an 
Act, subsequently passed by the insular States, to 
render all fraud impossible, has removed the very pre- 
tence for any prohibition of the kind. Formerly the 
beverage of the natives was their own cider, but since 
they have sent their cider and apples to England, the 
consumption of spirits has increased in proportion. 
The cider which remains at home, is that which would 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 179 

not repay the expense of exportation. In consequence 
of that erroneous policy, many orchards have been 
destroyed, and luxuriant crops of corn now ripen, where 
not many years ago, the apple and the pear threw out 
their rich blossoms in the spring. 



CHAPTER II. 

Military Roads. — Goodness of the Soil. — First Tour.— Sea 
Baths. — St. Clement's Road. — Bagatelle. — Saumarez's Ca- 
nal. — The Manor. — The Witches' Rock. — Witchcraft is 
prosecutable in the Dean's Court.* — A peep at St. Cle- 
ment's Bay. — Pontac. — Seymour Tower. — French Inva- 
sion of 1781. — Grouville Church. — Mount Orgueil Castle. 
— Village of Gorey. — Chapel. — Oyster Fishery and Trade. 
— Dissensions with the French authorities. — Mount Or- 
gueil Harbour. — Visit to the Castle. — Harliston, and St. 
George's Chapel. — Dean Bandinel. — St. George's Day. 

The military roads are the other sort of communica- 
tion, and are also of a more recent origin. The first of 
them, the Grouville, or Don Eoad, was formed about 
the year 1808, and derives its name from its founder, 
the late Sir George Don, the then Lieutenant Gover- 
nor of the Island. He had a great deal of opposition 
to encounter, which he finally overcame by bis 

* The Compositor had made the following curious mistake in 
the heading of this Chapter, where instead of reading- — " Prose- 
cutable in the Dean's Court," — he had made of it — " Prosecuta- 
ble in the Devil's Cave." 

Typographical Error— An Epigram. 

Sometimes it happens that a lucky hit, 

Cuts deeper than the most sarcastic wit. — 

The Canon made 'gainst witch and wizard means, 

That solemn jurisdiction is the Dean's. — 

Another sense the compositor gave ; 

To prosecute them in the Devil's cave* 



182 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

moderation and his perseverance. There are now 
several of those roads, all of them beginning at St. 
Helier, and communicating with each other. Those 
roads have the appearance of English Turnpike Roads, 
except in the essential particular that they are toll free, 
because from their having been originally constructed 
by the States, they are still maintained out of the gene- 
ral funds of the island. 

The soil is good and fruitful, though generally light. 
In some of the valleys, however, one may find vegeta- 
ble earth to a very considerable depth. The slopes of 
the hills, which formerly were covered with broom and 
furze, have been brought into cultivation, especially 
such as have an exposure to the South. The general 
declivity of the ground is from North to South, which 
presents, by far, the best exposure to the rays of the sun. 
The most elevated point is Mount Mado, on the North 
coast, and in the parish of St. John, where it is above 
400 feet above the level of the sea. It consists of a 
mass of granite, or rather of sienite, of a superb grain, 
and of an extreme hardness. The lowest point is St. 
Aubin's Bay, where the two towns of St. Helier and 
St. Aubin at each extremity, seem to look at each other, 
the former as a queen city, and the latter as its humble 
vassal. 

The lowlands which extend from St. Helier to Mount 
Orgueil Castle, near the circuitous road through St. 
Clement and Grouville parishes, are supposed to be the 
best in the island. It will be in that direction that we 
shall first conduct our Tourist. — "We leave St. Helier 
near the Theatre, pass Plaisance, the elegant seat of 
J. W. Dupre, Esq., leaving the large suburb of George 
Town on the left, and going down a good road, we soon 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 183 

feach the sea-beach, where there is a commodious 
bathing establishment, on what is called the Greve 
d' Azette. There are always kept here a certain number 
of bathing machines in readiness. The accomodations 
are elegant, and comfortable, and the charges reason- 
able. 

Above the baths, and parallel with the coast, runs 
the military road to St. Clement. At some distance 
from the road, on a rising ground, and nearly embo- 
somed in extensive plantations, rises the superb man- 
sion of Bagatelle. It commands a most extensive 
prospect. It has often changed its owners. It was 
the residence of the late Duke of Bouillon, then of Sir 
Thomas Le Breton, and is now that of Francis God- 
fray, Esq., an eminent Advocate of the Royal Court of 
Jersey. Such mutabilities do a few years produce in 
the tide of human affairs, that well may the philoso- 
pher exclaim, " That life has all the semblance of a 
dream !" — A little farther on we come to a large piece 
of water, which from its oblong shape is not improperly 
called Saumarez' Canal. It seems to have been origi- 
nally intended to drain off the waters of the adjoining 
swamp, and to have afterwards answered the double 
purpose of being as an ornament and a fish pond to 
the Manor of Saumarez, close to which it extends. 
Some ancient recollections attach to that venerable 
place. It was, for a long time, the seat of the eldest 
branch of the Dumaresqs, one of whom was Henry 
Dumaresq, the republican, and the adversary of Sir 
George Carteret. It was also the property of Philip 
Dumaresq, whose Map of Jersey, is prefixed to the 
Second Edition of Falle's History. He wrote a treatise 
of great merit on the state of Jersey, which, was pre- 



184 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

sented to James II., in 1635. An avenue of hardy 
weather-beaten oaks, formerly led to the Seignorial 
Mansion, and seemed to have resisted for centuries, 
the sweeping storms that came rushing upon them 
from the neighbouring sea. The oaks too have expe- 
rienced the vicissitudes of their ancient owners. They 
have been felled, and they are gone. 

After passing the avenue, an old road, perfectly 
shaded by trees, and interspersed with several farm 
houses takes the direction of the coast, at a small dis- 
tance from which, and in the middle of a field is to be 
found the Witches' Rock, more commonly called Eoc- 
bert. Some of the good people still aver that his 
Satanic Majesty, in one of his nocturnal visits, left the 
vestiges of his cloven feet deeply imprinted in the solid 
rock. It was there that in the days of our grand- 
mothers, the neighbouring wizards and witches met 
to celebrate their sabbath. The belief in sorcery 
is disappearing very fast, and the fear of the mischiefs 
which its vengeance might occasion, has given way to 
derision and contempt. 

Well might the scoffer sneer at the ignorance and 
cruelty of priestly superstition, when he is told, that 
the existence of witchcraft is still acknowledged to 
exist in Jersey, and that by the Canons of its Ecclesi- 
astical Court, — it comes within the Dean's Jurisdiction. 
It is, indeed, become a dead letter, but there is always 
danger, as long as a law is suffered to remain unre- 
pealed, especially when in the hands of a tribunal that 
pretends to be distinct from the civil power, and which 
if ever directed by tyrants or fanatics, might be fatal to 
the peace of individuals, and to the interests of society. 
— There is a vain and superstitious belief that no human 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 185 

force could remove the rock from its present situation. 
That will certainly be the case, till some bold projector 
has the audacity to quarry it away in spite of witch- 
craft, for the purpose of some impious speculation. 

The sea appears again from this place, and at low 
water, it uncovers an immense extent of low rocks, 
enough to impress the soul with horror. On the right 
is the small island of La Motte, containing about half 
an acre of land. Its neighbourhood is noted for ship- 
wrecks : but a little farther out to sea, and on a rock 
that never covers, is the tower of Icho, to defend the 
Bay, and still farther out, at some miles distance, Sey- 
mour Tower seems to rise from the waves, near which, 
the Baron de Rullecourt and his Frenoh invaders, 
landed in 1781. The path whichlines the coast of that 
terrific panorama, leads, in a few minutes, the tourist 
to the village of Pontac, a place of fashionable resort 
for convalescents, and for the amusements of many a 
pic-nic. There is an improbable tradition that Charles 
II, landed at this place. That Prince landed near 
Elizabeth Castle, and was attended by a numerous fleet. 
He had been driven by his enemies from place to place 
in the West of England, till finding himself unsafe, 
even in the Scilly Islands, he sought an asylum in 
Jersey, where he remained some months. — Thus far 
for the traditions of King Charles in Jersey, most of 
which, were the nursery tales of our grandmothers, 
and are not deserving of further credit. 

The point of land, which separates the Bay of St. 
Clement from that of Grouville, is the most southerly 
land in Jersey, and the nearest to Seymour Tower, at 
the distance of something less than three miles. There 
is a tradition that there was once a hermitage on that 



186 HILTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

rock in honour of St. Samson. It is well-known that he 
was one of those Armorican Saints, who converted the 
Channel Islands to Christianity. It is from that rock, 
that a shoaly bottom is supposed to extend to France, 
and that this is the place from which, if ever, it was 
separated from the Continent. According to the Chart 
of Capt. Robert "White, R.N., the soundings in the 
intermediate distance do not average more than six 
or seven fathoms. That disruption took place about 
the beginning of the Eighth Century, when, according 
to the Abbe Manet, the waters scooped out St. Michael's 
Bay in France, and swallowed up all the lowlands 
round the island, so as to leave little more standing 
than its rocky site. — There is also another tradition of 
the kind, that in the time of St. Lo, who died the 21st 
of September, 585. Jersey was separated from the 
territory of Coutances, but by a narrow stream, over 
which the lord of the soil was, by his tenure, obliged 
to supply a plank to ferry over the Archdeacon of 
Coutances, when he was engaged in his Pastoral Visi- 
tations. The latter part of this statement is probably 
false. 

Yv T hen the French invaded Jersey, in 1781, they 
seized a Battery at La Roque, and left there a detach- 
ment of about one hundred men. On the first alarm 
of that occupation, the late Rev. F. Le Couteur, then 
Rector of St. Martin, had two field pieces immediately 
removed to Fort Conway. They were his own private 
property, and had been put in a state fit for service at 
his own expense. He came up himself to Captain 
Campbell, and urged him to dislodge the French de- 
tachment who had occupied the battery. That officer 
had already received the Lieutenant-Governor's capitu- 






HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 187 

lation, with his orders not to stir, hesitated at first, and 
finally refused to comply with Mr. Le Couteur's re- 
quest. That spirited man having next applied to Lieut. 
Robinson, was told that he dared not to attack the 
enemy against the orders of his superiors, as if he did, 
he would lose his commission and be ruined. Then, 
said Mr. Le Couteur, I am a man of some property, 
and if you should lose your Commission, I will take 
care that you shall be fully indemnified ? — During that 
indecision, Captain Campbell received a letter from 
Major Pierson, that, notwithstanding the Governor's 
orders, he was resolved to attack the enemy. On re- 
ceiving this intelligence, he detached the company of 
Grenadiers, divided it into two parties, took the com- 
mand of one himself, and gave the other to Lieut. 
Robinson. Before he could, however, come up, Robin- 
son had already dislodged the enemy, and occupied the 
battery. Six of his brave men fell, who were honoura- 
bly interred in Grouville Churchyard, where the parish 
caused, afterwards, a suitable monument to be erected 
to their memory, where it remains to this day. 
Eight others were wounded. 

After leaving the hamlet of Pontac, the tourist goes 
up the road to St. Clement's Church, and after turning 
to the right and then to the left, he gets on the higher 
grounds of Grouville, and after passing between the 
orchards of Hugh Godfray, Esq., he has a full view of 
Woodlands, the elegant seat of that gentleman. As 
you advance the luxuriance of the vegetation improves. 
At the bottom of a large village, rises the modest 
steeple of Grouville Church, the prettiest country 
church in the island. After passing the church, the 
road gets confined between hedge-rows, planted with 



188 HISTORICAL SKETCH OP JERSEY. 

high and over-branching forest trees ; but very soon 
the obstruction vanishes, and the eye roves delighted 
over the rich amphitheatre of the rural district of Grou- 
ville. On the right is the sea, and the level turf, 
which the Tourist leisurely traverses, forms the race 
course. That noble amusement, has been introduced 
from England, and is yet in its iufancy ; but it is hoped, 
that in time it will affect its principal purpose that of 
encouraging an improvement in the breed of horses, 
and of relieving residents from a larger country, from 
the monotony which they must necessarily experience 
in such a small island. — There is also another race- 
course on the sands, in the Greve d'Azette, below the 
baths, and at a small distance from St. Helier; but 
there, the sport is even of a still inferior nature, and 
has nothing to deserve any particular description. 

Before us, and rising on a stupenduous rock, stands 
Mount Orgueil Castle in all the venerable majesty of 
the olden time, and the decayed grandeur of genera- 
tions, who have long since vanished. It is easy to 
imagine why that fortress was so long the bulwark of 
the inhabitants, and a kind of sacred pledge, that 
while it remained untaken, the island would not yield 
to a foreign yoke. If nature might be said sometimes 
to have been an accomplice with man, in affording him 
facilities in the art of war, it certainly marked out to 
him this place for the site of a fortress. Notwith- 
standing the great changes, which time has effected in 
the art of attacking and defending fortified places, it 
is astonishing that Government has not done more to 
prevent its being dismantled, and a part of its buildings 
from falling to ruins. A position with so many glorious 
recollections deserves to be kept in suitable repair, and 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 189 

the more so, on account of its harbour, which forms a 
good station, whence in time of war, the motions of 
shipping between it and the Continent might be 
effectually watched. 

The road is lined by contiguous houses, which soon 
lead to Gorey, a large village or rather town, supposed 
to be already more populous than St. Aubin. It has 
a chapel of the Church of England of its own, as the 
Parish Churches of Grouville and of St. Martin were 
too far. The Chapel is built in a good style, and on 
an eminence, which has a good effect, as it towers 
above the modest habitations of the village below. 

Gorey owes all its importance to its oyster fishery, 
which is of a very recent date, and gives it the cha- 
racter, and the bustle of a small sea-port town, especi- 
ally during the fishing season. The oysters are dredged 
for, in the intermediate Channel, and occasion almost 
perpetual altercations with the French local authorities, 
who as our people say, have extended their oyster limits 
too far, and restricted the oyster season to too short a 
time. The truth is that the oyster beds are nearer to 
the French coast, that the French fishermen see the 
English dredgers with an evil eye, and that by a con- 
vention between the two governments, the latter are 
restricted from dredging nearer than within sis miles of 
the French coast. 

During the fishery from two to three hundred boats 
are constantly in motion from the oyster beds to Mount 
Orgueil Harbour, and from thence back to England. 
The harbour is safe and commodious j it has a 
bason, fitted with artificial beds, in which the oysters 
may be deposited as they are brought in, unless they 
are shipped off immediately for the place of their 



190 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

destination ; as too long a stay in bulk would cause them 
to perish. The greater part of the English fishing 
cutters belongs to the county of Kent, and the money 
which is so lavishly expended by their crews is really 
an object of importance to the inhabitants of Gorey. 
The motions of the flotilla are highly animating. It 
is really delightful to see that swarm of fishing boats 
gliding along over those shallow bottoms, which 
anciently the overwhelming force of the waters rent 
from France. On Sundays, the boats are all confined 
to the harbour, which then presents a small forest of 
masts. 

It frequently happens that there are differences be- 
tween the fishermen, and the oyster merchants. No 
boat is then allowed to come out, and woe would be to 
him who would endeavour to break through this com- 
bination. On more than one occasion, it has been 
necessary to have recourse to the intimidation of the 
military. It is really painful when such a state of 
things comes to interrupt the course of laborious in- 
dustry, in which all parties are losers, when the obsti- 
nacy of the fishermen to secure themselves against low 
prices, causes them to miss the profits of perhaps a 
whole fishing season. 

The merchantable oyster ought not to pass through 
a ring of two inches and a half in diameter. When it is 
smaller, it ought to be thrown back into the water, and 
when larger it would not suit the merchants, who buy 
their oysters by the tub. It is on that account that 
the oysters generally brought to the St. Helier's Market 
are of an enormous size, and unfit to be sold in 
England. 

The Jersey fishermen, notwithstanding the limits, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 191 

which have been traced for the two nations, have fre- 
quent altercations with their French rivals. The 
latter naturally suppose that the oysters with which 
their coast has been so bountifully supplied, ought to 
be exclusively their own, and that no limits ought to 
have been traced to prevent their fishing in any parti- 
cular part. On the other hand the English fishermen are 
very apt to incroach on the French limits, where the 
oyster grounds are better supplied and more easily 
dredged. Scarcely a year passes without the capture 
of some English boats within the French limits. 

The boat is then carried into Granville, and tried by 
the French, and if condemned, the produce of the 
fishery is confiscated, and the crew are subject to a fine 
and imprisonment. A ludicrous circumstance of the 
kind happened some years ago, when a Jersey boat 
was captured by a French Garde Cote under those 
circumstances. The crew went down below, and the 
Garde Cote, put some men on board to take the 
oystermen into Granville. As soon as they had got to 
a certain distance, the Jerseymen unexpectedly ap- 
peared on deck, overpowered the French, and taking 
their places, very coolly steered about, and reached 
again the island in safety. 

The yearly exportation of oysters to England 
amounts on an average to One Hundred and Thirty 
Thousand tubs, of three bushels each ; and each of 
those tubs varies in price from three and six pence to 
four shillings. To this may also be added a profitable 
trade in the exportation of lobsters. 

Mount Orgueil Castle has given its name to the 
harbour, and some part of its celebrity to the village 
of Gorey. There the tourist may stop and refresh 



192 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

himself at Payne's British Hotel. A short walk from 
thence will bring him to the entrance of the Castle. 
As you go in, yon will meet with a few great guns, 
without their carriages, lying uselessly on the grass, 
as if only to point out where they had been formerly 
mounted. After having gone up a first stair case, the 
visitor reaches the Porters' Lodge. There he is ex- 
pected to pay sixpence, and inscribe his name. The 
setting down of the name may be no more than to 
gratify the visitor, while the sixpence is understood 
to be to keep up the ruins in a tolerable state, to pre- 
vent them from falling into further dilapidation. 
Such is now that once impregnable edifice, which, in the 
time of its prosperity was the best work of Jersey ! 
But for the protection, which its walls might have 
there afforded, of how many deeds of darkness and of 
shame has it not been conscious, and how often have 
not extortion and the abuse of power been concealed 
within its walls ! 

The foundation of this Castle is commonly attributed 
to Julius Csesar, as everything else which has any 
pretensions to a Roman origin is most commonly 
assigned without any further inquiry to that first of 
the Emperors. This would have happened 800 years 
before the island, had as it is supposed been yet dis- 
severed from the Continent. Though it is probable that 
such a commanding point had been fortified from the 
most remote antiquity, the reasonable opinion is, that 
Mount Orgueil Castle was the work of some of the co- 
temporaries of Henry II., that is like the Abbey of St. 
Helier in the twelfth Century. Notwithstanding its ap- 
parently impregnable situation, on a perpendicular rock 
of above 200 feet high, it must have had its weak sides, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OP JERSEY. 193 

from the circumstance that strangers were not admit- 
ted but blindfolded within its walls. It was never taken 
by force, but it fell by surprise from Floquet, a Norman 
captain, acting for Pierre de Breze, the celebrated 
Count of Maulevrier, who had obtained a cession of 
the island through the intrigues of Margaret of Anjou, 
the heroic and unfortunate Queen of Henry VI. The 
upper part of the Castle was built by Richard Harlis- 
ton, who had recovered the island from Maulevrier, 
and was called from him the Tower of Harliston. 
That brave man like many others, had the close of his 
life, after a brilliant career clouded by misfortune. 
Having been implicated in the civil wars of his time, 
he was proscribed and banished by Henry VII., and 
retired to Flanders, where he died in want and ob- 
scurity. He was the father of the virtuous Margaret 
de Harliston, who had married a De Carteret, and was 
the traditionary mother of twenty sons. 

Among the curiosities are the ruins of St. George's 
Chapel. Thomas Overay, one of the best governors of 
Jersey, who lived under Henry VII., and under whose 
administration it became particularly rich and flou- 
rishing, was buried in that chapel. The memory of 
that good man still gives after the lapse of ages an in- 
terest to that sacred place. (Chronique de Jersey, 
Chap. XIV.) 

There is a well which has been excavated in the 
natural rock, of great and uncertain depth, which tra- 
vellers are often desired to test by casting a stone into 
it. A Roman origin has been assigned to it, the usual 
convenient mode of accounting for any work of un- 
explored antiquity. 

The next place are the ruins of a prison, in which 



194 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

offenders were confined before a jail was erected at St. 
Helier's under Charles II. There are also stone seats 
on which the magistrates of a former period are said to 
have met to hear and determine causes ; but this must 
have been very ancient, as there is a company of halber- 
diers, who are bound by their tenures to attend the pri- 
soners to and from trial at St. Helier. 

There is a suite of rooms in which Charles II., is 
said to have been entertained during his exile ; for he 
never fixed his residence in the Castle. Those rooms 
were probably the residence of the old governors of 
Mount Orgueil. It was there also that George 
Poulett resided under Elizabeth, and Sir Philip De 
Carteret, under Charles I., the same who had the 
keeping of the celebrated Pry una, and whose humane 
attentions so far relaxed his puritanic austerity, that 
he would play cards with Lady De Carteret, and her 
daughters. At a later period, the late Duke of Bouil- 
lon, Rear Admiral D'Auvergne, resided there for some 
years, during the French Revolution, and made several 
improvements to the apartments. 

Another interesting object is the room almost at the 
top of the Castle, where David Bandinel, and James 
Bandinel, one of his sons were confined during the 
civil wars of Charles I., for their disloyal conduct, — 
from whence having attempted to escape, he and his 
son fell from a great height on the rocks. The former 
was taken up senseless the next morning, and had 
just time to be brought back to expire in his cell, while 
the latter was so severely bruised, that although he 
partially recovered, he did not long survive his fall. 
No alteration has been made to the room, and it seems 
to be even now in precisely the same state, as it was, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 195 

at the time of the Dean's fatal escape. There is a 
tradition that he was an Italian, who had left his 
country for his religious opinions. Among the noble 
families of Pisa in Tuscany, there is one of that name. 
Much evil has been said about his memory, but it 
ought to be received with some distrust, when it is 
recollected, that it has come down to us from the 
chronicles of his cotemporary adversaries, who could 
see no merit but in a blind attachment to the virtues, 
as well as to the faults of their unfortunate king. — 
Let his errors be either forgotten, or his sufferings be 
remembered, but by the sympathy of the historian ! 

There is an annual holiday kept every Easter Mon- 
day, at Mount Orgueil Castle. On that day, it is 
thrown open gratis to the public, who crowd in great 
numbers up and down its stair cases to enjoy from its 
summit the enlivening prospect of a beautiful and 
highly cultivated country, interspersed with elegant 
mansions and numerous villages, containing an indus- 
trious and contented population, while the adjoining 
sea is covered with the whitening sails of vessels of 
different sizes. 

There was formerly a pilgrimage made by the devout 
people to St. George's Chapel in the Castle, on his 
anniversary, which falls on the 22d of April. It is well 
known, that St. George is the Patron Saint of England. 
The Governors apprehensions of a surprise were ex- 
cited, by the admission of so many pilgrims into their 
feeble garrison. It was, therefore, suppressed by an 
article in the Ordinances of Henry VII., in 1495, and 
has remained so ever since, except that in after times 
the holiday, on Easter Monday, seems to have been 
substituted in its stead. 



CHAPTER III. 

Geoffrey's Leap. — Druidical Remains. — Houpue Bye, or 
Princes' Tower. — Its Traditions. — Its Views. — Historical 
Details. — D'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon. — St. Martin'* 
Church. — St. Catherine's Bay. — The Ecreho Rocks. — 
Rozel Manor. — Rozel Harbour.— Bouley . — The best Naval 
Station in Jersey. — Mount Mado. — St. John's Church, and 
Fair. — Trinity Manor. 

The traveller after leaving Mount Orgueil Harbour, 
and after passing before the principal entrance into the 
Castle will soon come to the edge of the cliff. It is 
from this place that on a fine day there is a magni- 
ficent prospect of the coasts of France. It is at this 
place that a remarkable rock, projects into the sea; 
which the country people call Geoffrey's Leap. Tra- 
dition is always uncertain, the most probable of which, 
is that some person of that name, had the option to 
take that dangerous leap, and that having succeeded 
in that extraordinary feat, he saved his life. After a 
gentle assent, you pass through the small hamlet of 
Anneville, which rises on the slopes of a narrow glen, 
whose sunny recesses are full of cottages, of verdure, 
of flowers, and of fruits. At the entrance into this 
glen is the small cove of Anne Port. To the left of 
this cove, on a hill adjoining the Garenne, or the com- 
manding ground, which immediately looks down on 
Mount Orgueil Castle, there is an inclosed field, which 
contains a Druid's Temple, the most perfect of the 



198 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

kind, that is yet remaining in the island. A few years 
ago, the owner of the land caused some excavations to 
be made about it, and the result ascertained that it 
had been but a small temple, and not at all to be com- 
pared with that, which formerly existed on the Town 
Hill, now Fort Regent. "What is more extraordinary 
in this Pouquelaye, or Cromleh, is how a mass of such 
an immense weight and dimensions, could have been 
placed horizontally, over seven perpendicular stones, 
three of which, only touch the Cromleh, the other four, 
from some cause or other, are lower. The three rough 
perpendicular blocks, which support the Cromleh seem 
to have been selected to taper to a point, which is at 
once evident to ocular inspection. It is really, a 
matter of admiration how in an early age, possessed 
of few mechanical powers, means could have been de- 
vised to raise and locate such stupendous masses ; but 
this has generally been observed iu all other Druidical 
remains, and the mystery has never yet been satisfac- 
torily explained. 

These stones had always been considered to be of a 
Druidical origin, before the surrounding rubbish had 
been cleared away. The Pouquelaye, was not then 
elevated more than ten inches above the under stones, 
and from thence the artificial surface sloped down to 
the level of the field. 

In the course of this excavation, some pottery, or 
rather fragments of it, were discovered, as well as a 
few old coins, and a quantity of broken bones, which 
seemed to have been blackened by the action of fire. 
It has been generally supposed that human beings 
were occasionally sacrificed in those temples, but this 
is a charge which, admits of doubt, and which would 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 199 

require a longer investigation than is consistent with 
the limits of this little work. All the accounts we have 
of the Druids have descended from the Greeks and 
Romans, who were either strangers to their rites, or 
prejudiced against their cast. 

The Druidical remains found in this island, are all 
erected in elevated situations. The same has been 
observed respecting Druidical altars in other places. 
The shape of this temple is circular, and may be about 
ten feet in diameter. As the outside stones under the 
cromleh have been left standing on end, one would 
infer from that circumstance, that this was but an en- 
trance leading into the sacred recesses of the holy* 
mansion. It is to be regretted, that the whole of the 
rubbish about this Cromleh, has not yet been removed, 
a great quantity of which remains untouched ; because 
there is no doubt, but that its removal would be at- 
tended with further discoveries. The height of the 
Cromleh, or upper block of stone from the ground, has 
been ascertained by measurement to be about five feet, 
ten inches. 

That Cromleh is of a kind of porphyry, & was broken 
off from a rock in the neighbourhood. It has indeed 
been said, and that too on the authority of the owner 
of the land, that some years ago, a learned geologist, 
when on a visit to this island, discovered the spot 
whence this block had been extracted. It seemed to 
be of the same quality, and corresponded in shape with 
the cavity, which it had left behind. 

After travelling for a few miles over a road, skirted 
by every variety of rural scenery, one arrives at the 
Princes' Tower, or as it is still better known among 
the inhabitants by its venerable and appropriate name 



200 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

of La Hougue Bye. That spot has become one of the 
highest attractions, and is visited by nearly all the 
strangers who come to Jersey. It is nearly in the 
centre, and in the most beautiful part of the island. 
For some years past it has become a matter of specu- 
lation with the owners, who have fitted up premises 
near it with comfortable and even splendid accommo- 
dations for balls, dinner parties, pic-nics, and other 
amusements of the kind. The Princes' Tower is in 
the middle of an inclosure, thickly planted with forest 
trees, and of a few acres in extent. In the middle of 
it, is an artificial mound, up which there is a winding 
path, with a border of flowers up to the top, where 
according to the legends of olden times, there was 
formerly a tomb, over which a humble chapel had 
been built. The whole is now surmounted by a tower 
of modern construction, covered with ivy to disguise 
its comparatively recent origin, having been erected 
not more than fifty years ago, by Captain D'Auvergne, 
afterwards Duke of Bouillon. 

The Hougue Bye, answers to what in England is 
called a barrow, a large pile of earth and turf, raised 
over the remains of the illustrious dead, who had fallen 
in single combat or in war. There are several of them 
in Jersey, but this is the most noted, and has its parti- 
cular tradition. It states generally, that a Norman 
nobleman, the Lord of Hambye, having been killed in 
this island, his widow caused this extraordinary monu- 1 
raent to be erected over him, to such a height, that 
it might afford a distant and uninterrupted prospect of 
the spot, where her beloved husband had been interred. 
The chapel was intended for masses for the soul of the 
departed Champion according to the religious belief of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 201 

that period. This tradition contains nothing impro- 
bable, for the Lords of Hambye were influential men, 
and made a high figure in the history of Normandy. 
They were the founders of the Abbey of Hambye, near 
Coutances, and were possessed of some property in Jer- 
sey, which they afterwards lost, when Normandy was 
dismembered from the dominions of King John. Thus 
far may be consistent with truth, but there are other 
particulars annexed to this tradition which carry with 
them the air of exaggeration or romance. 

The tradition connected with this spot, is well ima- 
gined, and has obtained some poetical celebrity. It 
is to be found in Falle's History. — A large serpent in 
the marsh of St. Laurence desolated the Isle of Jersey, 
when a valorous knight, the Lord of Hambye, came 
over from the Continent, to destroy it, and succeeded 
in the enterprise. His Squire, who had attended him, 
when under the influence of the irresistible passions of 
lust and ambition, murdered him in his sleep. On his 
return the Squire told the widowed lady, that her 
lord had been killed by the monster, and that he had 
expressed as his dying request that she would marry 
him. The credulous lady was deceived into compli- 
ance, but the murderer could find no happiness in his 
prosperity. A guilty conscience tore him with re- 
morse, and his very sleep was disturbed by horrid and 
distracting dreams, which caused him often to cry 
aloud that he had slain his master. This at length 
excited suspicion, from which resulted a judicial in- 
vestigation, and a full conviction of his guilt, for which 
he received the condign punishment. As to the lady 
she caused an elevated mound to be raised over the 
ashes of her buried lord. 



202 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

Thus far for a succinct account of that venerable 
piece of antiquity. A few observations are however 
necessary on that monument in its present state. It 
is situated in the most elevated part of the island, at 
the extremity of the parish of GrouvLUe, in the direct 
military road between St. Helier, and Mount Orgueil 
Castle, and at the distance of about two miles and a- 
half from the former. Besides its poetical and legen- 
dary celebrity, it has other modern attractions to invite 
travellers to its lovely site. 

La Hougue, or as it is now called, the Princes' 
Tower, was always remarkable for the extensive pano- 
ramic prospect which it commands from its summit. 
The island with all its beautiful, varied, and one might 
almost say, unrivalled scenery, seems to be expanded 
under the feet of the beholder, as it were, in a glowing 
and animated mass, A great part of the coast with its 
different sinuosities of bays, creeks, headlands, and 
cliffs, appears, within a blue expanse of waters, which 
recedes from it, and is lost in the distant horizon. 
The north-west district of the island isboundedby high, 
and in many places, inaccessible cliffs. There the eye 
may wander over the whole extent of this limited 
country ; except that the high land prevents the view of 
the sea beyond the western boundary. That part of the 
view, which stretches over the water is truly magnifi- 
cent. It extends over the narrow Channel between 
Jersey and the coast of France, at the distance of rather 
less than twenty five miles. A large extent of the 
coast is visible to the naked eye on a clear day, with 
its long line of sands, the scattered white habitations 
distinguishable on the land at various distances, and 
above all the towers of the cathedral of Coutances, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 203 

rising on the horizon, with all the majestic grandeur 
of a Christian temple. 

The Hougue Bye, was purchased about the end of 
the last century by Philip D'Auvergne, Esq., a native 
of this island, but since better known as Admiral 
D'Auvergne, and as Duke of Bouillon. Being a man 
of genius and taste, he enlarged the ancient Chapel, 
and raised a Tower over it, from which the locality 
has almost lost its ancient name of Hougue Bye to 
merge in that of the Princes' Tower. His Serene 
Highness laid out the whole of the field in which it 
was enclosed, in plantations, as well as the sides of the 
mound. He cut also a large winding path up the 
acclivity, which still continues to conduct the tra- 
veller to this hallowed building. The subsoil through 
which the path has been cut, seems to consist of loose 
stones, and rubbish, — another proof, if more were 
wanting, that the mound is artificial. The Duke of 
Bouillon's plantations, have grown up in process of 
time, and totally changed the original appearance of 
that spot, which seems now to be embosomed in a 
dark grove of forest trees, which deprives it of all its 
prospects, till one gets far up the mound, from which 
the chapel and the tower seem to emerge above this 
solitary wilderness. 

Before the improvements made by the Duke of 
Bouillon, the monument was in all its native sim- 
plicity, where the mound rising out of a large field, 
had not a single tree to shade it, or otherwise obstruct 
the view. The ascent of the tumulus was covered 
with turf, very much like the barrows on Salisbury 
Plain. In a drawing then made of it, the summit is 
crowned with an ancient building, apparently divided 



204 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

into two parts, which, from its smalmess, may be sup- 
posed to be a homely imitation of the holy sepulchre. 
So much has been said of Philippe D'Auvergne, 
Duke of Bouillon, that the reader will not be sorry to 
have a succinct account of that distinguished person. 
He was born in Jersey, in 1754, of an ancient and 
honourable family, some of whom, had risen to emi- 
nence in the Church, and in the Military Profession. 
Young D'Auvergne was brought up in the Navy, but 
having been taken prisoner, he was carried to France. 
The similarity of his name to that of the reigning 
Duke, drew the attention of that Prince, who had him 
introduced to him. D'Auvergne had all the advantages 
of personal accomplishments, andof a superior intellect 
to fascinate the Duke. The dry ceremonies of distant 
etiquette, and of courtly reserve, soon ripened into 
esteem and affection. He imagined that D'Auvergne 
was of his own family, of which, it is possible that he 
might have been descended from some distant branch. 
Having only one son, an idiot, he adopted him, as his 
second heir. The old Duke and his son, having died 
successively, during the storms of the French Revolu- 
tion, Philippe D'Auvergne became the titular Duke of 
Bouillon, and a British Rear- Admiral, in 1805. Con- 
sidering himself now closely allied to France, he sup- 
ported the Royalist cause, by all the means in his 
power. For that purpose, he obtained the Naval com- 
mand in Jersey, and resided for several years in Mount 
Orgueil Castle, whence he directed some of the most 
delicate operations during the civil war in la Vendee. 
This excited the animosity of Napoleon, and when he 
repaired to Paris, in 1803 to devise legal means for 
the recovery of his inheritance, he was arrested, and 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 205 

after being treated with every kind of indignity, the 
first Consul ordered him to quit the French territory 
within 24 hours. After the Restoration of Louis 
XVIII., in 1814, he was momentarily put in possession 
of his duchy, of which he was deprived the year follow- 
ing by the Congress of Vienna. He retired to London, 
where he died of a broken heart in 1816. He was a 
brave man, with a noble, patriotic, and generous spirit, 
which would have become the illustrious station to 
which Providence had raised him. The duchy of 
Bouillon was given to Prince Charles of Rohan, who 
was a relation of the old Dukes in the female line. 

After leaving the Princes' Tower, the traveller has 
a good road to bring him to St. Martin's Church, and 
thence to St. Catharine's Bay, about a mile further. 
The immediate neighbourhood of St. Martin's Church, 
is fertile, well cultivated and populous. The living 
is said to be the best country parish in the island. It 
was there that the unfortunate Dean Bandinel was 
rector, and was buried. It is but very lately that his 
lineal descendant Dr. Bandinel, the keeper of the 
Bodleian Library, at Oxford, sold the family estate in 
this parish. 

The site of St. Catharine's Bay, is one of the most 
interesting and the most picturesque in the island. 
The road leads through a secluded valley, sloping 
down to the sea, and terminating in this small, but 
safe and commodious Bay. This valley, which is 
sheltered from almost every wind, is very fertile and 
in a high state of cultivation. It has been observed 
that when the insular crops of apples fail everywhere 
else, the produce of this sequestered vale forms a 
favourable exception to the general disappointment. 



206 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

This bay, and several of its lovely sites have not 
failed to attract notice. Many neat residences have 
been erected in several of the most striking spots, 
which combine the most exquisite rural scenery, with 
the most complete seclusion. 

The most eligible spot for enjoying a view of St. 
Catharine's Bay, and of the neighbouring scenery, is 
from an adjoining point of land, which is designated in 
the maps under the name of Verclut. The most 
proper time to go there, is on a fine summer evening, 
when the tide below, is at its greatest height. It is 
then indeed that this prospect is splendid in the ex- 
treme, — irregular masses rising some hundred feet 
above the water, the blue smoke from the fishermen's 
huts ascending over rocks covered with moss and 
stunted furze, and at a distance, houses, corn fields, and 
groves of richly tinted trees, that seem to mingle in 
the distant horizon with clouds reflecting the brightest 
hues of purple and gold. 

About two leagues from the shore, and a little far- 
ther from the Continent, there is a long ridge of rocks, 
many of which are never covered by the tide, which 
afford a seasonable shelter for fishermen, and gatherers 
of sea weed during the summer. The largest of those 
rocks is not destitute of vegetable earth, and contains 
a few permanent habitations. This range is commonly 
known by the name of the Ecrehos, the soundings 
between which and the Jersey coast, are so deep, that 
this circumstance alone militates against the proba- 
bility that Jersey was ever joined to France, on that 
side. The largest of the Ecrehos has the ruins of an 
old chapel to the Virgin Mary. It was erected by 
Pierre Du Pratel, a Norman Lord, for prayers to be 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 207 

made for the salvation of the soul of King John. 
That chapel was a priory of the Abbey of Val Richer, 
near Lisieux in Normandy. 

In the course of this excursion, the tourist may have 
a cursory view of the Seignory and baronial domain 
of Rozel, which its Lord holds in capite from the 
Sovereign by fealty and homage. It is one of the five 
great fiefs of the island. It was formerly one of the 
estates of the De Carterets, from whom it passed by 
female descent, to its present owner, Col. Lempriere. 
The mansion is a beautiful building constructed in the 
Gothic style. There is also a park, well planted with 
forest trees, inclosed in the English style, and which 
contains some fallow deer. 

After keeping round the park-wall, and to the right, 
you reach one of the most romantic parts of the coast. 
One would be inclined to suppose, that some violent 
convulsion of nature had, in this place, cleft the island 
in two. It was on this spot, that the guard on the 
heights of Trinity, saw a fire lighted the night after 
Christmas, in 1780, which was answered by another 
fire lighted on the coast of France. The road turns to 
the left, where it is cut out of the natural rock, which 
overhangs it in a terrible manner. The sea, which had 
been for a moment concealed, reappears again, and a 
steep descent brings you to Rozel Harbour: a small 
fishing creek, surrounded by lofty hills, whose length- 
ened shadows are reflected on the glassy surface of the 
waters. It is an excellent baiting place to stop and 
have some refreshments, which can be procured here 
of the best kind, especially shell-fish. Round the 
creek are some extensive barracks, and a few batteries. 
Very near this place, is the height of the Couperon* 



208 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

which contains some Celtic remains, of which we offer 
a sketch to our readers. It ought to be rather among 
those remains, however ill-disposed they may be, that 
one ought to seek for the form and the destination of 
a Druidical temple. That is the true cromleh, or Celtic 
ring. The number of stones which composed it, was 
a sacred number, which designated the number of the 
Gods. In the middle of them rose the Men Mr, or 
upright stone, which represented the Supreme Deity. 
Those Cromlehs served at the same time for places of 
Worship, and for Courts of Justice. It was there also 
that their chiefs were proclaimed and installed. 

After leaving the delicious little vales of Rozel, the 
road ascends into the parish of Trinity. It is an 
elevated and exposed road, which runs for a while 
parallel with the sea coast. Before reaching the 
Church, the road becomes shaded by lofty trees, and 
then turning into a deep hollow, it brings you at once 
into Bouley Bay, the most important for its depth of 
water, not only on the north coast, but on the whole 
coast of Jersey, and presents great capabilities for 
making it a most valuable naval station. It lies at 
an equal distance from the harbours of Mount Orgueil 
and of Greve de Lecq. 

The country near Bouley Bay, is bleak and barren, 
presenting towards the sea a line of enormous and pre- 
cipitous cliffs, occasionally intersected by deep ravines, 
and running streams; but as the land mostly rises 
from the south, it forms a ridge of table land, not more 
than about a mile from the sea, into which the waters 
flow directly North. The immediate vicinity of the 
bay is sterile in the extreme, producing nothing but 
heath, and a sort of stunted furze, which is commonly 







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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 209 

cut up, stacked, and used by the poor people instead of 
peat. The land does not improve till at about a mile 
from the shore, where it resumes its general fertility. 

The cliffs that bound the shore, are, as before ob- 
served, extremely rugged and precipitous, and oppose 
an insurmountable barrier to the encroachments of the 
waves. 

The ground slopes irregularly from the heights, till 
it ends in a wild and narrow glen commanded on all 
sides by the adjoining precipices. A little lower down 
there is a beach of moderate extent, which is the land- 
ing place of this Bay. The tide, on account of the 
depth of the water, recedes but to a small distance. 

The beach is composed of loose stones, similar to 
those in St. Catharine's Bay, among which are some- 
times found some beautifully variegated pebbles. Part 
of the ground above high water mark, has been 
levelled, on which some small barracks have been 
erected as an outpost. There is a battery close to the 
water's edge, in which, as well as on the commanding 
heights, there are several pieces of ordnance, which 
would render every attempt to land in that quarter 
abortive. 

With the view of drawing some portion of the oyster 
fishery to this harbour, the States of the Island some 
years ago, spent some thousand pounds, to erect there 
a small pier. The experiment however did not succeed, 
as no material improvement could be made unless 
effected on a large scale. Nor could it have ever com- 
peted with Mount Orgueil Harbour in that fishery, 
on account of its not being so conveniently situated 
with respect to the oyster beds. 

The States have long been desirous of doing all in 



210 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

their power for the improvement of Bouley Bay. 
With that view, they ordered a military road to be 
constructed from the top of Bouley Hill down to the 
beach. This road runs in zig-zag for about a mile, and 
is one of the most difficult, and most skilful works of 
the kind in Jersey. 

The heights completely command the Bay, without 
being themselves commanded by any higher grounds 
in the interior. In many parts, the front line towards 
the sea is inaccessible, or could be easily rendered so. 
The localities, therefore, afford all the capabilities 
necessary for the construction of an impregnable 
fortress. 

Bouley Bay is the best station in Jersey, which has 
sufficient depth of water and safe anchorage for men- 
of-war. The subject has, from time to time, drawn the 
attention of Government, but hitherto nothing has 
been done. The expenditure required, w T ould be far 
beyond the local resources of the island, and a citadel, 
and a breakwater could not be erected, but as a national 
concern. If these improvements should ever be ac- 
complished, it would, in case of a future war with France, 
not only conduce to the general defence of the island, 
but place Cherbourg under the immediate surveillance 
of Portsmouth, and of the naval squadron stationed in 
Jersey. 

From Bouley Bay, till beyond the quarries of Mount 
Mado, the coast is nothing but a continuation of small 
creeks, which from their variety have much to interest 
the traveller. 

These are Petit Port, Belle Hougue, Havre Giffard, 
Bonne Nuit, Fremont, and La Houlle. Next come the 
Mount Mado quarries, which are worked on a large 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 211 

scale, and supply the best granite in the island. It is 
not far from thence to St. John's Church. There is a 
fair held here annually, on Midsummer-day, where very 
little business is transacted, but which is numerously 
attended by visitors from every part of the island, who 
resort there, as to a place of agreeable amusement. The 
late Rev. Dr. Richard Valpy, whose memory reflects 
so much honour on the island, had his family estate in 
this parish, and had been born there. The tourist will 
return by Trinity Church, and have a view of the 
grounds of Trinity Manor, the most rural and the best 
laid out of any in Jersey, and which bear the nearest 
resemblance to an English Gentleman's park. This 
was the estate of the late Admiral Carteret, the cir- 
cumnavigator, and of his son, Sir Philip Carteret 
Silvester, whose sister and heiress, Lady Symonds, 
resides mostly in England. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Tour to the Westward.— St. Aubin's Road.— St. Matthew '* 
Chapel.— Beauty of St. Aubin's Bay.—Martello Towers. 
— St. Peter's Valley. — View from Beaumont. — Description 
of St. Aubin. — Market. — Chapel of Ease. — Tower Harbour. 
— The Great Roads. — Noirmont Point. — St. Brelade's 
Bay. — The Quenvais. — Natural Causes. — Desolate Coast 
from La Corblere to Grosnez Point. — St. Peter's Barracks. 

The next tour will be to the westward. The road out 
of St Helier is by the Esplanade, or by Charing Cross 
and Cheapside; for those popular names have also an 
existence at St. Helier's. One of the roads to St. 
Aubin, goes over the sands at low water, and is some- 
thing shorter. The upper road, which is that of the 
omnibuses, runs parallel with the coast, and like it 
describes a kind of semicircle till it reaches St. Aubin. 
The road would be delightful were it not for the clouds 
of d*t and sand, which are occasionally thrown in the 
faces of travellers. 

The whole of that road is lined nearly all the way 
by seats and villages, and the country is so populous, 
that it has the appearance of the suburbs of a large 
town. About half-way on that road, in St. Peter's 
parish, stands the Church of England Chapel of Ease, 
St. Matthew. It was erected by private subscription 
not many years ago, and affords a valuable accomoda- 
tion to that part of the parish, who are far from the 
Parish Church. A little farther on the road, is a large 



214 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

mansion, close to the sea, and called La Haule. There 
the road to St. Aubin forms into two branches, the 
upper, and the lower. The former goes up a hill, and 
soon opens into St. Aubin's main street ; the latter, 
runs over a causeway below high- water mark, passes 
in front of the Tower of St. Aubin, and, at the end, 
communicates with the town by a rather steep ascent. 
The magnificent prospect of the Bay, would easily recall 
the Bay of Naples, if the sky of the British Channel ex- 
hibited as bright an azure. After resting the eye for some 
time, the view presents Elizabeth Castle rising on the 
surface of the sea, beyond it, till it is bounded by Noir- 
mont Point. St, Aubin's Bay presents, on a clear 
day, the interesting spectacle of shipping of every des- 
cription moving on its waters, as it were in a living 
picture. The land, at some distance from the coast, 
forms a bold amphitheatre, which rises from the sandy 
beach to a considerable height, and is terminated at 
one extremity, by the rocks near the Tower of Noir- 
mont, and on the other, by the Harbour of St. Helier, 
and by the fortifications, which proudly rise over it on 
Fort Regent. It forms a semicircle, in the landscape 
of which, there is an almost endless variety %o be 
admired. It would be superfluous to dwell minutely 
on any of its particular beauties. The land, which 
about Noirmont is rocky, elevated, and sterile, is re- 
lieved by a well sheltered glen of singular fertility, in 
which the mansion of the Lord of that Manor has 
been erected. After passing this barren tract, the land 
improves in quality on the eastern side of St. Aubin, 
where, between natural fruitfulness, and cultivation, 
not an inch of it seems to be lost. The vales, the 
slopes, the recesses, and the heights which diversify 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 215 

this amphitheatre, are covered with meadows, conr- 
flelds, groves and orchards, in all the luxuriance of 
rural scenery, among which, habitations, from the 
humblest cottages, to the most ornamented gentlemen's 
seats, are interspersed in every direction. 

The coast from St. Helier to St. Aubin is defended 
by Martello Towers, at the distance of about a mile 
from each other. They are but little above high 
water mark, and were built during the first American 
War. There are also batteries and guard houses, 
once objects of much attention, but now almost for- 
gotten since the return of peace. Within that space 
there are several small valleys, which open into the 
bay, where they discharge some copious streams, 
which turn in their short course several corn mills. 

These are the vale near Beaumont, as well as the 
valleys of St. Peter, St. Lawrence, and Mill Brook. — 
The upper road to St. Peter's, after leaving the valley, 
winds painfully for nearly half-a-mile up the steep 
ascent of Beaumont Hill ; but on reaching the summit, 
the trouble of the traveller is amply repaid by a most 
magnificent prospect of the Bay, and of the wide ex- 
panse below. That view has some particular advan- 
tages over the others, from its being in a more central 
situation. 

The town of St. Aubin is about four miles from St. 
Helier. The tide in the bay recedes to the distance of 
about half-a-mile, and leaves an extensive plain of 
fine white sand, sufficiently hard to bear carts and foot 
passengers. The road over those sands is preferred 
by many during the summer months. The military 
road to St. Aubin, is the greatest thoroughfare in the 
island, and from which branch off the main roads to 
the six western parishes. 



216 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The site of St. Aubin was selected on account of its 
proximity to the Harbour of the Tower. The town is 
built on the side of a steep declivity. In many places 
the ground has been excavated to produce level spots 
for the buildings. There is but one main street, very 
tortuous and narrow, the steepness of which has how- 
ever been partially removed by levelling. 

The town is not large ; but the last census has ascer- 
tained its population to be on the increase. It has an air 
of neatness, and of general comfort. The houses are 
most of them substantially built of the granite of the 
country, but few of them are of modern date. It par- 
ticipated, however, in the general prosperity of the 
island, though to a less extent than its more fortunate 
neighbour, St. Helier. 

During a long time St. Aubin engrossed nearly all 
the trade of the island ; and many are the memorials 
of the prosperity of its former merchants. The town 
undoubtedly owed its foundation to the commodious- 
ness of its neighbouring harbour of the Tower. The 
date is uncertain, though probably it has existed in 
some state or other since the sixteenth century. Its 
patron saint, Aubin, or Albinus, was either a Welsh, or 
an Armorican Saint, and in that name, we seem to 
recognise the St. Aubins, who have long been reckoned 
among the largest landowners, in Cornwall. The 
town increased with the commercial prosperity of its 
inhabitants. The Newfoundland trade did not begin 
in England till about 1580, and Sir Walter Raleigh, 
who was Governor here in 1601, is said to have been 
concerned in some Newfoundland adventures from 
Jersey. Therefore it is perhaps to that distinguished 
soldier, that our ancestors were first indebted for a 
participation in that fishery. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 217 

St. Aubin had reached its highest prosperity under 
Charles II., when it possessed all the shipping of the 
island, and when St. Helier had not even the semblance 
of a harbour. The first attempts to form a harbour 
at St. Helier began under that Prince, but the progress 
was slow, and it was not till the beginning of the pre- 
sent century that the commercial prosperity of St. 
Aubin was materially affected by the rising harbour of 
Helier. Since that period, St. Helier has advanced 
with giant strides, and in the same proportion St. 
Aubin has declined. Some of the principal merchants 
have removed with their shipping and capital to the 
former town, so that at this moment St. Aubin has no 
hopes remaining of ever regaining its ancient as- 
cendancy. 

The inhabitants have, however, made efforts to avert 
this declension of their trade. It is about thirty years 
ago, that they had interest enough to induce the local 
legislature to build them apier, contiguous to this town, 
on which about £20,000 were expended. But it was 
soon discovered, that the shallowness of the water did 
not only render that pier almost useless, but, that in 
the opinion of many naval men, it affects the safety of 
shipping in the neighbouring and more valuable har- 
bour of the Tower. This memorial of legislative irn- 
becillity puts us in mind of a certain King of Spain, 
who built a superb bridge at Madrid, but quite forgot 
that he had no river, which he could bring to flow 
under its arches. 

St. Aubin does not, however, exhibit any of the 
signs of a decayed town, but has rather the appearance 
of a small English sea-port with a limited trade. Its 
shipping still amounts to a considerable tonnage, and 



218 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

it exports large quantities of the agricultural produce 
of the country. 

A commodious market was built there by the States 
about twenty years ago, which is held every Friday, 
and is well supplied. Omnibuses from St. Helier ply 
several times a day, and, at this moment, St. Aubin, 
from the salubrity of its situation, the beauty, and the 
variety of its walks and prospects, the comparative 
cheapness of house-rent, and above all, that stillness 
and retirement, which are so desirable for invalids, is 
become a favourite resort for those English visitors, 
who repair in quest of health to our side of the 
Channel. 

A Signal-post, on the brow of the hill, above the 
north-end of the town, communicates with the signals 
to the west, on the heights of La Moye, and transmits 
intelligence to another signal-station erected on Fort 
Regent, St. Helier. 

There is a well-endowed Hospital, or rather Alms- 
house in this town, which was founded by Mrs. Bartlett, 
the widow of one of its opulent merchants. That 
establishment is still in a flourishing state. — As the 
town is at an inconvenient distance from St. Brelade, 
its Parish-church, a Chapel of Ease was erected at St. 
Aubin's about a hundred years ago, where Divine 
Service is performed every Sunday, by a Minister 
elected by the inhabitants. 

The Tower of St. Aubin is built on a rock in the 
Bay, about a quarter of a mile from the town. It is 
a place of some note in the history of the island, and 
though it is not known when its fortifications were 
first erected, it is evident that they are of considerable 
antiquity. The Fort, from the limited extent of the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 219 

rock, can have never been large, nor could it have had 
any other object, than that of protecting the shipping 
in its harbour, and of co-operating with Elizabeth 
Castle, by their cross fire to command the entrance into 
the Bay. 

The Harbour is sheltered by the islet on the South 
side, and by the main island on the North and West, 
so that, it is esteemed the safest of all the Jersey har- 
bours, for merchant vessels and even for frigates. It 
is a tide harbour, though it is so only for a few hours 
at a time. At the New and Full-moon, it has at high- 
water, a depth of thirty feet. 

The Tower was garrisoned by the Royalists, in 1651, 
when a powerful fleet was sent to attack it, under Ad- 
miral Blake. All resistance against that formidable 
expedition would have been useless, and, therefore, the 
commander surrendered with his feeble detachment on 
the first summons. 

The present Tower, in the centre of the ground, was 
erected a few years ago, by the late Major-General Sir 
William Thornton, who was then Lieutenant-Governor, 
The space round the Tower is laid out in a formidable 
battery, so that the place is now in the best possible 
state of defence. The value of this islet is, therefore, 
entirely on account of its harbour, and of its command 
of the most important anchorage in the Bay. On the 
land side, it could make no defence, as it is completely 
commanded by the Noirmont heights, and by the high 
grounds that rise immediately above St. Aubin. 

Men-of-war, transports, conveying troops, and other 
large vessels, which cannot come into St. Helier for 
w r ant of water, remain . at anchor in that part of the 
Bay, which is called the Great Road, between the 



222 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the approach of shipping for some hours before its 
arrival. 

St. Brelade's Church is built on the western side of 
the Bay, and its Churchyard is not much above high 
water mark. It is a very humble edifice, said to have 
been built early in the twelfth century, and to be the 
oldest of the churches in the island. It has neither 
spire, nor tower, but ill is roofed over the nave like a 
house. There is, indeed, a round turret that rises from 
the ground, but which is built in a nook, and ascends 
only to a small belfry. It has an altar at the eastern 
end, and likewise pillars and communicating arches, 
similar to those in the other Jersey Churches. 

There is a small Chapel in the Churchyard, known 
by the name of the Fishermen's Chapel, which, on 
account of its antiquity, is well worth the attention of 
the tourist. There were here formerly, many of that 
sort of Chapels, which have gradually been demolished 
till this is the only one, which remains in a perfect 
state. Those Chapels are generally understood to have 
been built in Jersey before the Parish Churches, and 
to have been, for a long while, its only places of wor- 
ship. 

The Portelet, within which is the rock called Jan- 
vrin's Tower, is but at a small distance from St. Bre- 
lade's Bay. 

Above St. Brelade's Bay, and in a westerly direction, 
there is a large tract of sandy and uncultivated downs, 
known by the name of the Quenvais. It was anciently, 
says the Old Chronicler, a very fruitful spot, where 
everybody wished to have some property. He then 
proceeds with his tradition, which is in substance : — 
That, on the 25th of November, 1495, four Spanish 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 223 

vessels were wrecked, probably among the breakers of 
La Corbiere. One of those vessels, however, reached 
the shore, and saved its crew, with the exception of 
one man. The savage inhabitants plundered those un- 
fortunate people of what little they had saved. Divine 
vengeance, however, was not slow to overtake those 
inhuman wretches. Clouds of sand, driven by the 
high winds, overwhelmed their devoted district, and 
changed their fruitful fields into an arid desert, which 
has since been known under the name of the Quenvais. 
Man is fond to have recourse to the interposition 
of Heaven, to account for the extraordinary effects 
of natural causes. The violation of common hu- 
manity had been atrocious, and the people of that 
period, imagined that such guilt could not be ex- 
piated, but by some miraculous punishment from the 
offended Deity. That vengeance, however, was per- 
haps nothing more than a strong westerly wind, which 
happened about that time, and caused that signal 
devastation. It is well-known that those winds, which 
often prevail there, carry over with them immense 
showers of sand far into the land. In the course of 
time, the natural ground becomes covered with a thick 
layer of sand, and becomes totally unfit for cultivation. 
This opinion is further strengthened from the fact, that 
the subsoil is a vegetable mould, and that, even remains 
of buildings have been discovered in some places, 
where the sand has been removed. 

Even now, a great many of those sandy hillocks 
might be removed, and the ground restored to agricul- 
ture ; but the process would be too tedious, and too 
expensive, to let us hope, that for a long time it could 
be more than partially accomplished. Experiments 



224 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

of this sort were made even on a large scale, by the 
late General Sir George Don, who succeeded. The 
ground, after having been once uncovered, the effects 
might be rendered permanent, by preventing after- 
wards the gradual accumulation of sand. 

Near the Signal Post at La Moye, and at the bottom 
of the cliffs, are some curious caverns, but of recent 
exploration ; the visiting of which, would well repay 
the curiosity of the traveller. 

The tourist has to continue his road across this deso- 
late tract. He will have a distant view of the danger- 
ous rocks of La Corbiere, which present the most 
formidable obstacle to the communications of St. 
Helier with England, or are at least the most frequent 
cause of delay. In sailing from England, the first part 
of Jersey which emerges above the sea, is the bold 
promontory of Grosnez lying at its northern extremity. 
It is usual for vessels to approach nearer, or to keep to 
a greater distance from the Corbiere according to the 
weather. It is during fogs that those rocks are parti- 
cularly dangerous, when local knowledge and prudence 
can in many cases be of little avail to the pilot. 
Steamers now approach it much nearer, than any 
sailing vessel would have formerly ventured to do, and 
it is from the deck of any of the former, that one is 
enabled in fine weather, to have the best view of those 
rocks, especially, if it be low water. The coast of 
Jersey, on first nearing it, has a most forbidding and 
unpromising appearance. Nothing can exceed the 
dreariness and desolation of Grosnez, and La Corbiere 
Points. 

After leaving the Quenvais behind him, the tourist 
reaches St. Peter's Barracks, a large mass of buildings, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 225 

seen to a great distance, which were erected during 
the late war, for military purposes, as the name im- 
ports. Since the return of peace they have been left 
untenanted, or are merely occupied by a few soldiers 
to prevent depredations, and to keep the buildings 
from getting into a state of dilapidation. 

On returning homewards, the tourist passes by St. 
Peter's Church. It is situated in a fruitful and popu- 
lous part of the country, but it has nothing particu- 
larly interesting either from traditional or historical 
recollections. Its steeple is higher than that of any 
other parish Church in Jersey. — On the way to St. 
Helier, the traveller may stop a few minutes on the sum- 
mit of Beaumont hill, whence there is another pros- 
pect of the Bay, which is particularly grand and mag- 
nificent. From this place a good road with a steep 
descent joins the St. Aubin's Road, atthe third Mar- 
tello Tower. 



CHAPTER Y. 

St. Peter's Valley # Marsh.— A Romantic Glen. — St. Ouen's 
Bay. — Encroachments from the Sea. — St. Ouen's Pond. 
— Historical Recollections.— Creek of L'Etac, S$c.— Grosnez 
Castle,— View of the Setting Sun from Grosnez. 

The last tour which the stranger may make in his ex- 
ploration of the Island will be into the St. Peter's 
Valley Road, and that part of the country to which it 
approximates. The whole of the districts to be visited, 
have been so vividly described in " Ouless' Scenic 
Beauties," that we shall confine ourselves mostly to a 
selection from that work. After leaving St. Helier by 
the Esplanade, and travelling for about two miles one 
comes to the entrance of St. Peter's or rather St. Law- 
rence's Valley, one of the richest, best cultivated, and 
most beautiful districts in the Island. At its opening, it 
expands into a considerable extent of meadows, some 
of which are rather low and marshy. The numerous 
rivulets on the south coast of Jersey run from North 
to South, and intersect it, till within a mile of the 
coast, where the waters takes a northerly direction. 
That is the reason that the largest streams in Jersey 
fall into St. Aubin's Bay. That of St. Peter's Valley 
is the largest, and during its course of four or five miles, 
it turns several mills. 

The shores of St. Aubin's Bay, are lined by narrow 
sandy downs, beyond which, there is a strip, more or 
less wide, of rich and valuable land, which reaches to* 



228 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the foot of the hills. In several places, however, the 
hills separate and form different valleys, which pene- 
trate into the country. The principal of these go by 
the name of St. Peter's and St. Lawrence's Valleys. 
There is an extensive marshy common, which is 
generally under water during the winter months. If 
it were private property instead of being a common, 
it might be easily drained. The Eastern side of the 
Valley consists of well irrigated and productive mea- 
dows, after which succeeds a finely wooded and pictu- 
resque country, full of orchards and corn-fields. It 
seems to be one of the most densely inhabited, and 
most flourishing tracts in Jersey. 

A little farther on, the Valley contracts into a nar- 
row glen, which winds between steep and elevated hills, 
covered with stunted furze, and so rugged, that they 
seem to be incapable of any improvement, or cultiva- 
tion. The windings of the glen are so considerable, 
that one soon loses sight of everything but the circum- 
scribed horizon between the enclosing hills, till the 
deception is so complete, that one might suppose him- 
self to be travelling through a Continent, at several 
hundred miles from the sea, and among the picturesque 
scenes of some sterile Alpine region. 

After having proceeded a little farther, the Valley 
expands again, but the traveller leaves it to ascend the 
road, which now conducts him by a gradual ascent, 
till he reaches the table land, near St. Peter's Church, 
and joins the old military road, which goes to St. 
Ouen's Bay. It is during this ascent, that the views 
are magnificent, and vary at almost every step ; — the 
Bay, with the numerous shipping sailing in every 
direction, on its glassy expanse, Elizabeth Castle, the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 229 

fortifications of Fort Regent, and the town of St. 
Helier, with the adjacent country. To visit this part 
of the island to advantage, one ought to enter by the 
Vale road, and to return by the Beaumont or the old 
military one. This latter branches off from that to 
St. Aubin, near the third martello tower, and after 
skirting the border of St. Peter's Marsh, it climbs up 
the hill of Beaumont, one of the highest and of the 
steepest in the island. The inconvenience of that 
road had long been felt, people began at length to 
be convinced, that the most practicable roads, are 
always the shortest, without any reference to the actual 
measured distance, and that on mathematical princi- 
ples, the space is as great to go over a hill, as to go 
round its circumference. 

The scene of the exploits, and of the murder of the 
Lord of Hambie, was laid in St. Lawrence's Marsh. 
The tradition is probably a fable, but it is so well 
imagined, and has been told with so much simplicity, 
that if it is a fiction, it has a certain air of truth about 
it, which has rendered it the most beautiful, and the 
most popular of our Jersey stories of olden time. 

From St. Peter's Church, the road leads to the Bar- 
racks, and afterwards to St Ouen's Bay, which is the 
largest in the island, for it extends from North to 
South, for about five miles. Four miles of it are on a 
fair, flat and low sand ; the sea in this Bay is very bois- 
terous, especially near the shore, for it lies open to the 
whole violence of the Atlantic Ocean, as it rushes up 
the British Channel. It has no good anchorage, or 
safe landing anywhere, but large vessels may come to 
an anchor off a rock, called La Rocco, which is always 
above water, and on which, a tower has been erected 



230 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

to command the anchorage. That rock is about half- 
a-mile below high- water mark, but is left dry when the 
tide is down. There are times when the Bay is nearly 
inaccessible for several weeks, from the violent surf 
that breaks over the rough surface of low rocks, which 
run along the whole extent of this, too frequently, 
dangerous coast. 

There is a tradition that the northern part of this ex- 
tensive Bay was once a fertile valley ,in which there grew 
a forest of oaks. As this vale had no natural barrier 
of rocks for its protection, it could offer no resistance 
to any sudden irruption of the sea. The date of that 
catastrophe is uncertain, though, if a conjecture were 
to be hazarded from tradition, it could not have hap- 
pened more than 500 years ago. A breach once ef- 
fected, it soon became wider ; by degrees the waves 
washed off the rich soil, and left it in its present state, 
of a barren sand. This was doubtless in the first 
instance the effect of a tremendous storm from the 
westward, and afterwards a succession of wintry gales 
completed the devastation. The former existence of 
a wood is sufficiently evident. After violent storms, 
the flat rocks are frequently bare of their covering of 
sand. At those times, many trunks of trees are dis- 
covered chiefly near low water mark. Those stumps 
still cling to the rocks by their roots, that pierce the 
clefts. The length of one trunk, was, when found, 
fifteen feet in the main stem, and it measured from 
nine to ten feet in. girth. It then spread itself into two 
branches, each of nearly the same length and substance 
as the stem itself. The remains of stone buildings, 
are also, sometimes discovered. There is also a bed of 
peat in the bay ; but, as the waves frequently deposit 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 231 

over it a covering of sand, it is but occasionally visible, 
St. Ouen's Bay is surrounded by alow line of coast, 
extending for some distance into the country. Beyond 
that, the Bay is commanded by the neighbouring 
heights. Considering, therefore, all the natural and 
artificial obstacles which this Bay presents to an in- 
vader, it is one of the best for tilled, and of the least 
accessible parts of Jersey. 

About the centre of the bay, and close to the shore, 
there is a fine piece of fresh water, generally known 
by the name of St. Ouen's Pond. This small lake is 
interesting, as being the only thing of the kind in Jer- 
sey. It is shallow, and is formed by the drainage of 
several small streams, which overflow the lower part of 
a large extent of surrounding meadows. Formerly 
this lake contained some very large carp, winch are 
supposed to be extinct, but it still abounds in tench. 
The upper part of the lake being full of reeds, affords 
in the winter season shelter to wild ducks and other 
aquatic birds. 

There are some important historical recollections 
connected with this Bay. During the civil wars of 
England, the celebrated Admiral Blake, was sent by 
Cromwell, in 1651, with a large fleet, to reduce the 
island. He first attempted to land here, but having 
been repulsed after an attack of four hours, the fleet 
bore off. and entered St. Brelade's Bay where he hoped 
to carry his design into effect with little or no opposi- 
tion. But there also after having made several efforts 
to land, he was disappointed. In consequence Blake 
weighed anchor, and returned to St. Ouen's Bay, where 
the next day he finally succeeded in landing his 
troops. 



232 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The talent and energy of Sir George De Carteret, 
who commanded the Royalists, was conspicuous on 
that occasion. He charged the enemy with great 
gallantry at the head of his small body of horse. The 
attack on the Cromwellians was bloody and desperate, 
as might have been expected from men, who fought 
for their Prince on their own native soil, and who, if 
they had no hopes of victory, were resolved not to fall 
ingloriously. Many of the invaders perished in the 
engagement, but as fresh troops were continually 
pouring in from the fleet, the insignificant number of 
troops under Sir George were obliged to retreat. As 
to Sir George he retired with 300 of his best men to 
Elizabeth Castle, besides several individuals, who 
having formerly distinguished themselves for their 
attachment to the King, were now afraid of the con- 
sequences. 

There is another historical recollection attached to 
this bay, but which had not so fatal a result as that of 
the invasion in 1651. A French expedition under the 
command of the prince of Nassau, appeared off this 
Bay, the 1st of May, 1779- After a faint attempt at 
landing, the hostile fleet stood off for St. Brelade's 
Bay, but it was lost sight off during the night, and was 
not seen again on the coast. 

At the extremity of St. Owen's Bay, the tourist will 
reach the village and small fishing creek of L'Etac. 
Some additional fortifications to defend the Bay, were 
erected then by the late Sir William Thornton. From 
L'Etac, the road ascends, and continues to do so till it 
reaches the last village in Jersey, and the nearest to 
the ruins on Grosnez Point. The coast from L'Etac 
to this village, is but a succession, of nearly vertical 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 233 

precipices, rugged, and inaccessible masses of rock, 
and of huge impending crags, which, though grand 
and sublime, lose much of their attractions, by the 
frequency and the repetition of description. 

Grosnez constitutes the north western boundary of 
Jersey, forming a high and bluff promontory, the first land 
that the voyager sees emerging above the waves on his 
coming over from England. It is perfectly inaccessible 
from the sea, or has only a few of those airy, wander- 
ing paths, up and down which, a few stunted sheep 
in quest of a scanty herbage, where no human being, 
in his senses, would ever venture. 

Grosnez from its situation, as a commanding point, 
among cliffs and breakers, has acquired a distinguished 
name among the traditions of the country. It has 
been called a Castle, and of an antiquity so remote, 
that even the name of its founder has been forgotten. 
It has also been said to have been repaired and gar- 
risoned by the then Lord of St. Ouen, during the par- 
tial occupation of Jersey, by the Count of Maulevrier, 
in the fifteenth century. There is no ground for the 
former supposition, that it ever was a Castle, and still 
less probability, that it ever was a defensive post, dur- 
ing Maulevrier's occupation. The whole of this pre- 
tended Grosnez Castle, consists now, but in some 
trifling ruins, which are still to be seen at the extremity 
of the promontory. A small gate-way, and two pro- 
jecting angles form the remains of a portal. The walls 
of this place enclosed a very circumscribed area, and 
they are now so nearly effaced, that scarcely a vestige 
of them marks their former existence. The ruins 
of a place generally ascertain its former extent, unless 
they have been purposely removed, which was not likely 



234 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

to have been the case here. The primitive destination 
of the building appears, therefore, to be uncertain ; 
for it seems to have been of too limited an extent, 
either for a monastic institution, or for a defensive post. 
Even the masonry is altogether that of a rude and un- 
polished people, whose skill was small, and whose re- 
sources were still more scanty. It was, probably, no 
more than some solitary hermitage, like that of St. 
Heiier, to which his martyrdom has given an imperish- 
able name. The seclusion of the spot, the awful mag- 
nificence of the surrounding scenes, and its aptitude 
for heavenly contemplations favour this supposition. 

Grosnez Castle, and the adjoining Common, still 
make a part of the Lordship of St. Owen. Their is 
evidence, that some of the Seigneurs have held their 
Feudal Court under the portal, in the open air, in 
token of possession. — Would it be wrong to conjecture, 
that the author of the oldJersey Chroniques, who was 
also a retainer of the St. Owen family, might not partly 
from a love of fiction, and partly from a desire to please 
his patrons, have transformed the ruins of Grosnez 
into a defensive Castle, when that character, in fact, 
belonged to their castellated manor ? 

A Signal Post is erected on a conspicuous part in 
this quarter, and an uninterrupted view of all the 
neighbouring islands skirts the horizon. It was now 
late in the evening the travellers were weary, and in 
want of some substantial refreshments ; besides, they 
were at the distance of rather more than eight miles 
from St. Heiier. The tide was flowing in, and that 
alone would render it that day impossible to visit the 
neighbouring Caves of Plemont. They agreed, there- 
fore, to put it off, and to explore them at the earliest op- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 235 

portunity with a few other objects in a concluding tour. 
They, therefore, tarried a little longer on the cliffs of 
Grosnez, to enjoy the glorious spectacle of seeing the 
sun set in the western deep, and then departed. 



CHAPTER VI. 

St. Ouen's Manor. — The Property of the De Carterets. — Their 
origin and final settlement in Jersey. — Value of their 
Estate. — The Manor once a kind of fortress. — Some account 
of the present building .—Reflections suggested by it. — In- 
terior of the Mansion. — Heroic Adventure of the Seigneur 
and his Horse. — Margaret de Ilarliston. — St. Ouen's 
Church. — Description of Plemont. — Sand-eel Cove. — Des- 
cent to the Caves. — Access to them by water. — A waterfall. 
— The Caves. — Masses of Granite. — Scenery about Grevs . 
de Lecq. — St. Lawrence 's Road. 

Our Travellers returned highly gratified with the 
Tour, which the lateness of the hour alone had ohliged 
them to leave incomplete. There were also, exclusive 
of Plemont Caves, other places which, though of a less 
powerful interest, had much in themselves to excite their 
curiosity. The two principal objects, which they could 
not dispense with seeing, were the Caves of Plemont, 
and St. Ouen's Manor, the former for the wild magni- 
ficence of its inaccessible crags, and precipices, and 
the latter for those ancient historical traditions, which 
still hallow up the recollections of its diminished great- 
ness, at a time that the improvements of modern times, 
and the vicissitudes of human aflairs, will prevent it 
from rising again to its former importance. An excur- 
sion to Jersey without having visited those two noted 
places would be a serious disappointment, and like 
losing the principal object which the traveller had in 
view. It was therefore under those impressions that 



238 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY, 

the next morning our party got up in their open car- 
riage to conclude their tour, and before eleven o'clock 
they were at the gate of the venerable mansion of St. 
Ouen's Manor, where having been easily admitted, 
they spent a considerable time in examining the 
various antiquities of that feudal abode, with which 
they were highly gratified. One of the party who had 
a taste for drawing amused himself with taking a few 
sketches. 

St. Ouen's Manor was the ancient seat of the eldest 
branch of the noble family of the De Carterets*, who 
still retain it in the female line, and is situated in the 
parish from which it takes its name. It is about six 
miles from the town of St. Helier, about a furlong from 
its Parish Church, and on the military road from that 
town to St. Ouen's Bay. The recollections attached 
to the spot, are in the highest degree interesting, and 
it has, at all times, been held in veneration by the 
natives. Indeed, the history of St. Ouen's Manor, 
and of its noble owners, is intimately connected with 
that of Jersey, and seems to have been the point from 
which all the chivalrous and heroic exploits of its 
ancient inhabitants have emanated. 

It is unknown when that property was first vested 
in the family of the De Carterets, Perhaps they are 
as ancient as Rollo, the founder of the Norman name, 
and obtained an establishment among his followers in 
the province which he had conquered. Falle in his 
History, informs us, that Renaut De Carteret, was one 
of the Norman Seigneurs, who attended Duke Robert, 



• The name is spelled indifferently three ways : de Carteret, 
De Carteret, and Carteret. — The first way is the most ancient, 
and probably the most correct. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 239 

the Conqueror's son in the First Crusade about the 
year 1 101. The exploits of that brave but unfortunate 
prince are known to every reader of the History of 
England. 

A century afterwards the De Carterets sacrificed all 
their lands in continental Normandy to follow the for- 
tunes of King John, and settled in Jersey, and from 
that time, St. Ouen became their principal habitation. 
From that period till the restoration of Charles II., the 
name of St. Ouen's Manor, and of its noble inhabitants 
was inseparably connected with the history of Jersey, 
and with the gallant actions of the natives in its 
defence. 

That estate was two thirds of a knight's fee, which 
rendered the owner liable to the performance of certain 
military services in time of war, by virtue of his tenure. 
This estate relatively to large countries was but a 
moderate one ; but it was the largest in the island, 
where its owners always enjoyed a preponderating in- 
fluence. During the minority of Philip De Carteret 
under James I., it was estimatedtobe worth about 1000 
quarters of icheat rent, which in the present value of mo- 
ney might be estimated as not less than £2000 a-year. 
During the subsequent reigns, that property was much 
increased, and the family itself was loaded with honour 
and preferments. It has since considerably declined, 
owing to the extinction of the eldest branch in 1716 
by the death of Sir Charles Carteret, Baronet, and by 
its final division among four co-heiresses after the death 
of Earl Granville, in 1777- The possession of the 
manor and of his part of the estate, still continues how- 
ever in the lineal descendant of the family in the 
female line. This accounts for its having passed into 



240 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

the family of the Le Maistres. The late owner of that 
name, Charles Le Maistre, Esq., died not quite two 
years ago; a gentleman of high constitutional princi- 
ples, and equally distinguished in private life for his 
unblemished integrity and for the mildness and con- 
descension of his character. Sir George Carteret, who 
rose to so much eminence during the reigns of the two 
Charles', belonged to a younger branch of that family, 
which is now represented by the present Lord Car- 
teret, who is also his lineal descendant in the female 
line. 

St. Ouen's Manor, seems to have been anciently for- 
tified, and to have been surrounded by a moat and a 
drawbridge. All this has long been suffered to fall 
into decay, and nothing now remains but ruins to attest 
its former military importance. When the defences 
were in a proper state of repair and before the invention 
of artillery, it must have been a place of considerable 
strength, being completely surrounded by water, and 
out of the reach of any commanding heights. 

It is highly probable that it was principally from the 
resources of ihis castellated mansion, that Philip De 
Carteret, the then Seigneur in the fifteenth Century 
was enabled during six years to baffle, all the efforts of 
the Count de Maulevrier to subjugate the island, and 
that he finally regained possession of Mount Orgueii 
Castle which the treachery or surprise of the Governor 
had yielded to the invader. The Manor was also 
sufficiently capacious to contain any garrison, which 
might have been required to defend it against any 
force which Maulevrier might have brought to have 
formed a regular siege. 

The present mansion consists of two different sorts 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 241 

of buildings,— the old castellated mansion, and the 
comparatively modern wings. These wings, which 
project in front are known, both from tradition and 
from their style of architecture, not to be older than 
Charles II. Several of the outbuildings having be- 
come unnecessary, in the present reduced state of the 
establishment, have been suffered to fall into a very 
dilapidated state. The centre of the building, is all 
that remains of the ancient castle ; but it is now impos- 
sible to ascertain how much of it was pulled down to 
make room for the wings, or at what period it had 
been erected. If however one might indulge in con- 
jecture, it would be that the Castle had been built 
about the time of Edward I. which would bring it to 
not far from the time, when the family having lost all 
hopes of being ever restored to their continental estates, 
had decided on their final settlement in Jersey. 

The entrance from the road is through a narrow 
and arched gateway which opens into a small lawn 
in front of the house. This seems to be but a modifi- 
cation of the ancient terrace round the moat. This 
gateway, which is mantled over with ivy, has at first 
sight an air of great antiquity, but on examination, it 
cannot be older than the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The arms of the De Carterets have supporters, 
which could not have been the case, till the younger 
branch of the family had been raised to the peerage by 
Charles II., in 16SL 

That escutcheon of the family is appended over the 
gateway, on each side of which are also the arms of 
the de Barentins and of the Powletts, of Hinton. 
St. George in Somersetshire, (Earl Powlett.) 

The Barentins were a noble Jersey family, which 



242 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

has long been extinct, the head of whom was Drogo 
de Barentin, who was Governor of Jersey, under Ed- 
ward I., and who fell gloriously in the defence of 
Mount Orgueil Castle, in one of the sieges, during 
that reign. There is a tradition, that part, if not all 
of the possessions of the de Barentins devolved to the 
De Carterets. The arms of the Powletts record the 
alliance of the De Carterets with them, a younger 
branch of whom they represent in the right of Rachel 
Powlett, who was the heiress of George Powlett, bro- 
ther of Sir Amias Powlett, under Elizabeth. Rachel 
Powlett, is noted in the insular history of her time 
for the length of her life, and for the personal sorrows, 
with which it was clouded. 

On entering the mansion, through a low oaken 
door, which seems to have remained unchanged for 
ages, what thoughts do there not crowd into the mind ! 
It was through that door that the noble owner of this 
mansion returned, after having driven back the Con- 
stable Du Guesclin, from the walls of Mount Orgueil 
Castle ! It was there that the heroic Philip De Car- 
teret defended half of the island for six years against 
the attacks of the Count de Maulevrier, and there that 
the celebrated Margaret de Harliston, the subsequent 
mother of twenty sons, entered with her husband on 
their bridal mom ! And to complete the list of those 
pleasing recollections, it was there that Charles II., 
when a proscribed and persecuted exile, condescended 
to receive the hospitality of a brave and faithful 
subject ! 

The door opens into a spacious hall, at the bottom 
of which is a large oaken stair case, which for its anti- 
quity and high preservation has nothing to equal it in 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 243 

the island. The railing is of carved oak, and parti- 
cularly elegant. From this hall, there are doors, 
which open into several spacious rooms. On the 
right hand side, going up this stair case, there hangs 
the picture of a large and spirited horse, in the back 
ground of which, there is a sketch of St. Ouen's 
Manor, such as it may be supposed to have been before 
the more recent addition of its present wings. It does 
not seem to be known, by whom it was painted, nor at 
what time ; though it is much less ancient than the 
circumstance to w»hich it refers, which happened in the 
fifteenth century, while the Count de Maulevrier had 
the partial occupation of the island. During the long 
residence of the Lords of St. Ouen, in England, the 
picture had been much injured by damp, but the late 
worthy Seigneur caused it to be restored at a consider- 
able expense. — The story rests on a tradition, that the 
then Seigneur of St. Ouen, had gone out one day to 
fish in the Pond, or rather small lake, which lies close 
to the beach of St. Ouen's Bay. "While thus employed 
he was surprised by a French party, whom he had not 
perceived, coming along the sands below high water 
mark. He had, nevertheless, time and presence of 
mind enough left to mount his horse, and to gallop 
away from his pursuers. Being, however, closely 
pressed before and behind, he had no other resource 
left, than to take a desperate leap over a deep hollow 
lane, between two high banks. The noble- spirited 
animal rallying all his strength, succeeded in this ex- 
traordinary attempt, and saved his master's liberty, if 
not his life. As to the pursuers, they either dared not 
to venture on the perilous leap, or else they failed in 
the attempt. The lord reached in safety the gate of 



244 HISTORICAL SKETCH of jersey. 

his baronial mansion ; but the spirits and the life blood 
of the generous courser had been expended in the dis- 
proportionate exertion. He sunk under his lord, as he 
alighted, and gasped his last. — Such is the tradition ; 
it is possible, that it may have been embellished and 
exaggerated, but there is every probability that the sub- 
stance of it is true. 

We have thus been particular about St, Ouen's 
Manor, as from its being private property, its interior 
is seldom visited by travellers, and very little is seen of 
it, beyond what may be seen by a cursory glance from 
the road to St. Ouen's Church. 

The Philip De Carteret who was thus rescued from 
the pow T er of his enemies, by the fleetncss and the sacri- 
fice of his high-spirited steed, was afterwards the 
father-in-law of Margaret de Harliston, the celebrated 
Lady of St. Ouen, whose traditionary history forms 
such an interesting episode in the chivalrous history of 
Jersey. 

After leaving St. Ouen's Manor, the traveller will 
do well to devote a few minutes to visit the neighbour- 
ing Church. The road, winds round its churchy ard- 
wall. It is a very plain but ancient edifice, and being 
built in an exposed situation, its steeple is often used 
for a land mark. The advowson, was an ancient ap- 
pendage to the Manor ; but Regnault De Carteret, many 
years after his return from the Holy Land, made a 
donation in 1125, of the Church of Carteret, in Nor- 
mandy, and of the Chapel of St. Ouen, in Jersey, to 
the Abbey of St. Michael. This is another inference 
that, St. Ouen was then but a chapel, and not yet a 
parish church, at which time the building was en- 
larged. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 245 

The advowson of St. Ouen's parish, like all the 
other Jersey benefices, is now vested in the Crown, in 
whose possession it came at the suppression of the 
Alien Priories under Henry VI., about four hundred 
years ago. The Church is not only very rudely built, 
so as to bespeak a very remote antiquity ; but it is ob- 
servable that one part of the masonry is much older 
than the other, but the date of the construction of 
each is utterly unknown. The most probable suppo- 
sition is, that it was one of the ancient Chapels, which 
had been built before the island had been divided into 
parishes. After the Abbey of St. Michael had gained 
possession of St. Ouen's Chapel, it is probable that the 
Abbot enlarged it, and obtained that it should be made 
into a parish. If the pretended quotation from the 
Livre Noir of Coutances, was correct, the present 
Church would have been consecrated on the 3rd of 
September, 1 130. The inside corresponds with the sim- 
plicity of its outer fabric, though it inspires a kind of 
reverential awe, for the dust of the many brave men, 
and patriots of other ages, who repose within its 
precincts. 

On leaving the Church, the Tourist, will have to 
return near St. Ouen's Manor, and then to direct his 
route, as far as two gentlemen's seats, called the Vin- 
chelez. A few minutes more will bring him to the 
opening of a bleak and extensive common, the ex- 
tremity of which is bounded by the bold promontory, 
and the cliffs of Plemont. The country, after passing 
Vinchelez, soon loses its rural scenery, and the fields 
are inclosed with low rude walls of loose stones. The 
ground, however, still continues to be well cultivated, 



246 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

and does not seem to have lost any of the fertility of 
the interior. Beyond that, where the salt spray and 
the violent gales from the sea may be supposed to 
reach, the land is in a great measure condemned to a 
comparative sterility, and partly covered with stunted 
heath, furze, and grass, affording a scanty nourishment 
to a few straggling and stunted sheep. Plemont forms 
a headland at the northern extremity of the common, 
and projects about half a mile into the sea. The ground 
slopes from the common to the foot of this headland, 
where it forms a kind of peninsula. Near this place 
is a guard-house, which, since the return of peace, has 
been suffered to fall into a very dilapidated state. The 
rock had been excavated at this point of junction, so 
as to insulate Plemont. There was also a drawbridge ; 
but the fosse has since been filled up, so that no trace 
of it at present remains. Where the fosse had been 
excavated, the rock drops nearly in a perpendicular 
line to the sea. Several parts of the peninsula are at 
least two hundred feet high, and are absolutely vertical. 
These present a surface, as straight and as even as any 
artificial wall. 

The coast forms a kind of curve from Plement to 
Grosnez Point, which is the next projecting headland 
to the westward. This may be about a mile and a half 
across ; but in the intermediate distance the cliffs re- 
cede inland, and, forming the ark of a semi-circle, leave 
at low water a fine dry sand, of considerable extent, 
and about half a mile wide ; but the whole of that 
inlet is flooded at highwater to a considerable height 
along the cliffs. There is no beach whatever. This 
is the Greve au Lanchon, or Sand Eel Cove, perhaps so 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 247 

called, from the great quantity of that small fish, which 
is caught there at particular times. It is in that cove 
that the Plemont Caves are situated. 

A little towards the western extremity of this com- 
mon, there is a very narrow glen, between the hills, 
with a small stream of water flowing directly towards 
the inlet. At the head of this glen there is a rude 
causeway, stretching across it, but it is not obvious for 
what purpose it was originally constructed. At present 
it does not seem to be applied to any practical use. 

After taking leave of the common, it is time to des- 
cend to the Caves, which have their entrance on the 
sands of the inlet. They are not only of difficult, but 
even of dangerous access, and such as would deter 
weakly or inactive persons from making the attempt. 
There are two descents to the Greve au Lanchon ; the 
one, on the north, by a narrow winding path along the 
edge of the Cliff of Plemont, which is very difficult 
and dangerous, and down which, when arrived at the 
spot, many persons will not dare to venture. The other 
path is to the west, and on the left side of the stream, 
which ends in a diminutive waterfall. It seems to be 
that which is frequented by the country people, and is 
so much worn out into the heath, that it may be dis- 
tinctly traced from the opposite hill. At the end where 
it reaches the bare rock, the descent is steep and un- 
pleasant, but it is not long before it reaches the sand 
of the inlet. It may be pronounced, to be easy in the 
day time, and, with common precautions, to be perfectly 
safe. Though the lower end of it may be somewhat 
difficult, yet the most timorous may venture down in a 
kind of naturally grooved channel, which has been 
worn out in the rock. 



243 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

The inlet is left dry at about half tide ; it is of a 
circular shape, not quite half a mile wide, free from 
rocks, and of a fine white sand like that in St. Aubin's 
Bay. It may be about two or three hundred yards to 
low water mark. There is no beach upon which boats 
might be drawn up, nor indeed any shelter against the 
strong westerly gales, which set directly into the inlet, 
and consequently none are kept there. A mast has, 
however, been erected on a low part of the cliff, at the 
height of perhaps fifty feet, and within a small distance 
from the waterfall, the use of which seems to be to 
hoist up, and to lower boats, as well as to raise some of 
the seaweed, which at particular times drift in large 
quantities into the inlet. 

This semi-circuiar space is bound by an iron and 
inaccessible coast, varying in height from two hundred 
to thirty feet in the lowest part, where there is a small 
waterfall. Of course we mean from those places where 
the slopes of heath and stunted furze cease, and where 
the inaccessible crags begin. 

When one is safely arrived in the inlet, there is some- 
thing particularly grand in the surrounding scenery, 
and well calculated to impress the mind with admira- 
tion and terror. Suppose yourself to be placed in the 
arena of a huge natural amphitheatre, an awful soli- 
tude, though within a short distance from the most 
lovely rural scenes, which seems to be as old as creation 
itself, or to have been formed by some violent convul- 
sion of nature, every memorial of which has been lost 
in the lapse of distant ages. 

Before the tourist are stupendous, and apparently 
inaccessible cliffs, rising to the height of two hundred 
feet, and behind is the sea, which, with the returning 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 249 

tide, will not leave an inch of ground to stand upon. 
It makes the scene appear still more awful, that there 
is not even the smallest boat at hand in which the sur- 
prised tourist might escape ; nor, except one or two 
scarcely perceptible ledges, where the two paths of 
descent terminate, is there any space left uncovered at 
high water, which might serve as a place of refuge. 
As to cases of shipwreck, and especially if it was in the 
night, it would be of no avail to have reached the dry 
sand ; for destruction would be still inevitable to the 
unfortunate mariner, from the impossibility of climb- 
ing up to the top of the cliffs. 

It has been suggested that these caves had better be 
visited by water. About this we may be allowed to 
express some doubts. The distance from St. Helier by 
water is very considerable, on account of the offing 
necessary to be taken to avoid the swell at the several 
projecting points, which it would be necessary to double. 
Add to this, that such an excursion could not be under- 
taken but in mild and favourable weather, and that 
along that line, even pilot boats have not unfrequently 
met with accidents. 

There are, however, two points from which the caves 
might be reached by water, one from l'Etac, a fishing 
station at the extremity of St. Ouen's Bay, and the 
other from Greve de Lecq to the westward. The dis- 
tance, it must be owned, is comparatively trifling, but 
the excursion is not the less difficult nor the less 
hazardous on that account. On coming from l'Etac, 
there is all the way an iron-bound coast, rugged and 
perpendicular cliffs, against which the dashing of the 
breakers eternally roar, and where, in case of necessity, 
it were madness even to attempt to land. The passage 



250 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

from Greve de Lecq is equally' objectionable, on 
account of the broken water round the points, and the 
offing necessary to be kept. At Plemont, the difficul- 
ties would be proportionably increased, on account of 
the length that it stretches out to sea. After having 
surmounted those difficulties, it would still remain to 
ascertain what facilities a boat might have to row in or 
out of the inlet, a point which we find ourselves per- 
ectly unable to determine. The exposed situation of 
the inlet is likewise the cause, that fragments of the 
wrecks of vessels, and even valuable goods, are often 
cast there on shore. When unclaimed, they become 
the property of the Lord of the Manor. About a cen- 
tury ago, a large dead whale was stranded there, and it 
is remarkable that the same thing happened again only 
a few years ago. This last whale was, however, in a 
very decomposed state, and had probably been a long 
time in drifting there from the Polar Seas. 

The waterfall is another curiosity in this cove. It 
seems as if nature wished to have specimens in Jersey 
of all the objects which are either sublime or beautiful, 
though on a diminutive and contracted scale. This 
waterfall rushes down a perpendicular precipice of at 
least thirty feet high. We have already mentioned a 
small stream at top, flowing through a narrow glen, a 
little below the practicable path, till it disappears in a 
beautiful little cascade down the precipice. It is partly 
concealed behind a detached rock, so that it requires 
one to be close to it before it can be seen, which 
naturally contributes to give it a greater effect. 

There are several caves in this inlet, which are all 
scooped out of the rock, and extend for a considerable 
way under the cliffs. None of them, however, are very 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 251 

large, or could come in competition with some of those 
extraordinary caverns that we read of in other parts of 
the world. The main cave, which makes the subject 
of this lithography, is very near the cascade, on the 
right of which it opens on the sands. After having 
passed some detached rocks, one of which tapers like 
a rude obelisk to the height of between sixty and 
seventy feet, the tourist will find himself at the entrance 
of the principal cave. It may be a hundred feet high, 
is of a conical shape, and may be fifty feet wide at the 
mouth, where it is widest, but the width and height 
gradually diminish as you advance. It would be diffi- 
cult to say how far it penetrates under the cliff, but 
two hundred, or two hundred and fifty feet, may not 
be far from the truth. The floor does not dip in the 
rock, but being flooded every tide, it is perfectly level, 
being covered with fine sand, intermixed with pebbles 
of all sizes, and shallow ponds. After proceeding to a 
certain distance, the cave becomes tortuous, and re- 
ceives but little light. Any person who would wish to 
examine those caves with accuracy and with proper 
effect, ought to do it with a torch. There is a perpetual 
oozing of water through the superincumbent rock, but 
as it is of primitive formation, and, has no calcareous 
particles in solution, it has neither stalactites, nor petri- 
factions of any kind. On examining, however, the 
caves attentively, they are evidently large fissures in 
the rock, where the softer strata have been washed off 
by the violence of the waves, or by some other irre- 
sistible convulsion of nature. The opening once made 
would have continued to increase in size, till all the 
materials, which could not resist the agents of destruc- 
tion, had disappeared ; after which the cliffs, as left in 



252 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

their fractured, disjointed, and excavated state, would 
present an impenetrable barrier to the elements, which 
would not have the power to make on them any further 
encroachments. 

The entrance of those caves, and every little recess 
along the cliffs, is full of stones of all sizes, in the 
shape of nodules and pebbles. These are of the finest 
polished granite, which it must have taken ages, before 
the attrition of the waters could have rounded them to 
their present shapes. Nor is our astonishment lessened, 
when we endeavour to ascertain how some, (which are 
of enormous dimensions,) could have been rolled to 
their present situation. Those pebbles are of the most 
beautiful ganite, of which there is not one rock in this 
cove, or in its immediate neighbourhood. We mention 
these facts, though we decline all conjectures about 
their formation, and the places of their origin ; for it is 
better to leave what is at present unknown, to be 
ascertained by future investigation. 

We cannot take leave of those caves and of the bold 
and romantic scenery in their neighbourhood, without 
regretting that they are not more often visited. That is 
owing to the danger and difficulty of access to them ; 
but that inconvenience might be remedied at a trifling 
expense, if steps were to be cut in the rock from near 
the waterfall down to the sands. At this place, the 
descent would not be more than thirty feet. 

On his return from the caves, the tourist will do well 
to visit the romantic and interesting Creek of Greve de 
Lecq. He had, therefore, best to get there by St. 
Mary's Church, a plain and neat building, in perfect 
bearing with the spiritual wants of a rural population. 
A narrow and picturesque valley winds from the Church 



254 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY. 

kept in good repair and might accommodate 250 men. 

The States of the island have often had in contem- 
plation to build there a pier. The project is highly- 
popular with the neighbouring parishes ; but from 
unavoidable causes, it has hitherto been postponed. 

Our Travellers had been highly delighted with 
this their last excursion, but as they began to feel the 
want of a comfortable dinner, they lost no time to reach 
again the village, near St. Mary's Church. For the 
sake of variety they preferred to follow the road 
through part of the parishes of St. John, and of St. 
Lawrence, whence coming rapidly down Mount 
Felard, they joined again the St. Aubin's Road, at 
about a mile and a-half from St. Helier. 



THE END. 



;!^MttMwMMw4il§»si? 



THE 



PICTURESQUE AND HISTORICAL 



GUIDE 



; TO THE ISLAND OF JERSEY 



COMTILED PROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES, 



BY THE BEY. EDWARD DURELL, A.M., 



INTERSPERSED WITH LITHOGRAPHIC DRAWINGS 

BY P. J. OULESS, ARTIST. 

JERSEY : 
PUBLISHED BY P. J. OULESS, 8, ROYAL SQUARE. 

1817. 



S,i 



i 







rfie 



^ 



off 



JUST PUBLISHED, PRICE £1, BRITISH, 

"THE ItOYAL JERSEY ALBUM/' 

DEDICATED TO, AND UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF, 

HElfc MOST GBACIOUS MAJESTY THE QUEEN, 

EMBELLISHED WITH 
ELEVEN SPLENDID LITHOGRAPHIC DRAWINGS, 

BY PHILIP J. QULESS, 

DESCRIPTIVE OF 

HER MAJESTY'S PROGRESS IN THE ISLAND, 

DURING THE LATE ROYAL VISIT. 

The Work is accompanied with a letter-press descrip- 
tion, giving an accurate account of the proceedings on 
that festive and joyous occasion. The whole superbly- 
bound and handsomely lettered in Gold. 

ALSO : 

" THE SCENIC BEAUTIES OF JEBSEY," 

PRICE, £1 10s., BRITISH, 

WITH LITHOGRAPHIC VIEWS AND INTERESTING LETTER- 
PRESS DESCRIPTION. 

PUBLISHED AT 8, ROYAL SQUARE, 

. And may also be obtained at the private residence of the 
Artist, 

No. 50, PARADISE ROW, 

NEW STREET, ST. HELIER'y. 



WjMffi, 



Library of Congress 
Branch Bindery, 1903 



